"Bet­ter safe than sor­ry! In fact, bet­ter safe than dead...this dis­ease called 'Dengue' is se­ri­ous trou­ble!" ex­claimed nurse Browne, of the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty. "This is like a war, so you need to think in terms of strate­giz­ing for war. Know­ing how to pro­tect your­self in bat­tle, in­volves un­der­stand­ing how the en­e­my func­tions. So you need to first know all there is to know about the en­e­my, how it thinks, op­er­ates and sur­vives, in or­der to fight it.

"There are dif­fer­ent species of Aedes mos­qui­toes. The mos­qui­to that car­ries the dengue virus is Aedes ae­gyp­ti; which lives close to hu­mans in most trop­i­cal built-up ar­eas. "They bite in the morn­ing af­ter day­break, in the late af­ter­noon be­fore dark, through­out the en­tire day in­doors, in ar­eas pro­tect­ed from di­rect sun­light or on over­cast days and some­times in­doors dur­ing the night if lights are turned on. "This mos­qui­to breeds in man-made con­tain­ers that col­lect or hold wa­ter, such as cans, bar­rels, buck­ets, oil drums, old tires and flower vas­es, fre­quent­ly found in homes. House­hold­ers should avoid hav­ing un­cov­ered con­tain­ers with stand­ing wa­ter, which pro­vide ar­eas for mos­qui­toes to lay their eggs.

"A per­son can be re-in­fect­ed three times if ex­posed to one of the four dengue virus­es. Risks to in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers are small un­less an epi­dem­ic is in progress dur­ing the time of trav­el. Check with your im­mi­gra­tion de­part­ment or a trav­el guide on out­breaks be­fore you de­cide to go any­where. Chil­dren un­der the age of 15 years have the high­est risk of de­vel­op­ing DHF. Most in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers from ar­eas where dengue is not al­ways present, have a low risk of de­vel­op­ing DHF.

As a gen­er­al rule, you can re­duce your risk of catch­ing Dengue if you:

�2 Avoid ar­eas where dengue is be­ing trans­mit­ted (check the in­ter­net for out­break alerts).

�2 Spend most of your time in air-con­di­tioned build­ings, ho­tels, or oth­er closed en­vi­ron­ments that mos­qui­toes can­not eas­i­ly en­ter.

�2 Re­duce time spent in res­i­den­tial ar­eas as this may re­duce your pos­si­ble ex­po­sure to the mos­qui­toes car­ry­ing the dengue virus.

�2 Open your home when spray­ing is tak­ing place.

�2 Keep your home area free of ob­jects out­side that can col­lect wa­ter when it rains, like sty­ro-foam cups, bot­tles, etc.

�2 Cov­er your con­tain­ers with mos­qui­to �proof net­ting and sound cov­ers.

�2 Check gut­ters and drains to en­sure they are free of de­bris that could pre­vent free flow of wa­ter and har­bour breed­ers, and lar­vae.

�2 Emp­ty and scrub the sides of plant trays and vas­es and use dirt in­stead of wa­ter to sup­port the flow­ers (if you can).

�2 Know the symp­toms and be able to de­tect them in oth­ers so you can take pre­cau­tions if you see them. Even as I say this, know that there is an in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od of 3-14 days (usu­al­ly about 4-7) be­tween the bite from an in­fect­ed mos­qui­to and the on­set (be­gin­ning) of dengue symp­toms. Dengue fever may be­gin sud­den­ly.

Symp­toms usu­al­ly in­clude high fever, se­vere headache, and joint and mus­cle pain. Nau­sea, vom­it­ing, and loss of ap­petite are al­so com­mon.

A rash may ap­pear 3 to 4 days af­ter the fever be­gins and may spread from the tor­so to the arms, legs, and face. These ear­ly symp­toms do not usu­al­ly last more than 7 days. There may al­so be swollen glands, bleed­ing gums and se­vere pain be­hind the eyes, red palms and soles of feet. If there is a mos­qui­to in­fes­ta­tion near you, call the in­sect vec­tor con­trol at 663-2281 or email the Min­istry of Health at www.cor­p­comm@health.gov.tt

Veron­i­ca Rogers