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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Man with Zika-like symptoms sent home from hospital

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20160220

A man ex­hibit­ing symp­toms of the Zi­ka virus was sent home from hos­pi­tal even af­ter be­ing told by doc­tors that he may "un­of­fi­cial­ly" have the virus.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, the Bel­mont res­i­dent, in his 40's, said af­ter hav­ing a per­sis­tent fever for the last two weeks and oth­er symp­toms, in­clud­ing a measles-like rash, red eyes and pain be­hind the eye­balls, he went to the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Thurs­day evening.

The man said: "No blood sam­ples were tak­en from me for test­ing. The doc­tors told me that they didn't have the ca­pa­bil­i­ties to test for the Zi­ka virus, they can on­ly test for dengue fever. They al­so can­not test for the chikun­gun­ya virus and the doc­tors said based on my symp­toms, I ob­vi­ous­ly had the Zi­ka virus.

"What they told me was that they were not too fa­mil­iar with the virus as yet. The doc­tors said they knew that there is no treat­ment for the virus and they can on­ly treat the symp­toms."

He said he was giv­en Parac­eta­mol, a pain re­liev­er and fever re­duc­er, and his blood pres­sure was al­so el­e­vat­ed. He said he was dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal ear­ly Fri­day and was giv­en Piri­ton for his rash, Nor­gesic for mus­cle pain and ad­di­tion­al Parac­eta­mol for his fever.

He said the doc­tors told him his re­cov­ery time could be a week based on his health con­di­tion, since he had no health com­pli­ca­tions such as di­a­betes, was not el­der­ly and his im­mune sys­tem was strong.

The man said doc­tors might pos­si­bly be send­ing pa­tients home even though they might have the Zi­ka virus be­cause they didn't want the dis­ease to spread in the hos­pi­tal. He said he be­lieved the doc­tors felt he had the Zi­ka virus be­cause he al­so con­tract­ed the chikun­gun­ya virus last year.

The man said this time around he had a high, per­sis­tent fever for which the Parac­eta­mol on­ly pro­vid­ed tem­po­rary re­lief. He said when he had the chikun­gun­ya virus, he didn't have red eyes or pain be­hind the eye­balls, and now he has to take eye lo­tion every six hours.

The man said a rash broke out with chikun­gun­ya but it was not se­vere and last­ed three days; now he was tak­ing flu­ids and the rash was clear­ing up. The man said he was al­so ex­pe­ri­enc­ing pain in his joints, mus­cles and knuck­les, just like the chikun­gun­ya virus, with a lin­ger­ing fever, dizzi­ness and headaches.

This in­ci­dent fol­lows con­fir­ma­tion this week of the first record­ed case of the Zi­ka virus in the coun­try–a 61-year-old woman from Vic­to­ria Gar­dens, Diego Mar­tin, who test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus on Wednes­day.

Act­ing Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Clive Tilluck­d­har­ry an­nounced on Fri­day that there were al­so two new sus­pect­ed cas­es, a 60-year-old teacher and her son from the Freeport area, who both ex­hib­it­ed symp­toms of the virus, in­clud­ing fever, headaches and a measles-like rash.

Tilluck­d­har­ry said their blood sam­ples had been tak­en for test­ing and the Min­istry of Health was await­ing the re­sults.

Con­tact­ed by the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, Dr Tilluck­d­har­ry said if the ac­count was true, the pa­tient should not have been sent home with­out sam­ples tak­en for test­ing.

"The pol­i­cy is blood sam­ples have to be sent to Carpha (Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency) through pub­lic health labs. You can't say oral­ly he has Zi­ka with­out con­fir­ma­tion," he said.

He said at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Health Min­istry's of­fice on Fri­day that the Zi­ka virus pre­sent­ed symp­toms sim­i­lar to dengue and chikun­gun­ya.

Tilluck­d­har­ry re­it­er­at­ed: "That's why we need to do blood tests. No one should be go­ing around say­ing that they have Zi­ka with­out con­fir­ma­tion by Carpha."


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