Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

With 392 dengue cas­es and three con­firmed deaths in the coun­try, an op­po­si­tion MP is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure ad­e­quate re­sources at med­ical in­sti­tu­tions to treat dengue cas­es.

In a press state­ment, Fyz­abad MP Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe al­so urged peo­ple who con­tract dengue to re­main vig­i­lant. While ad­vis­ing peo­ple with symp­toms to seek ur­gent med­ical treat­ment, he added that the Min­istry of Health must en­sure the im­ple­men­ta­tion of mea­sures to avoid loss of life.

“How­ev­er, it is equal­ly im­por­tant that staff at the na­tion’s health cen­tres and hos­pi­tals recog­nise and in­sti­tute ear­ly treat­ment for this group of pa­tients if lives are to be saved. This re­quires that ex­pe­ri­enced med­ical and nurs­ing staff be de­ployed in emer­gency de­part­ments, ad­e­quate re­sources are pro­vid­ed for test­ing (for dengue and oth­er blood pa­ra­me­ters), suf­fi­cient platelet sup­plies be made avail­able, and that there is time­ly ac­cess to beds in the in­ten­sive care unit when re­quired.

“While it is im­per­a­tive that both cit­i­zens and the au­thor­i­ties do all in their pow­er to elim­i­nate breed­ing sites for the Aedes egyp­ti mos­qui­to, it is equal­ly im­por­tant for the Min­istry of Health to en­sure that ad­e­quate and suf­fi­cient re­sources are al­so avail­able in the na­tion’s health in­sti­tu­tions to iden­ti­fy and treat those who de­vel­op dengue haem­or­rhag­ic syn­drome.”

Bo­doe said stud­ies sug­gest that one in about 20 to 25 peo­ple with con­firmed dengue can de­vel­op dengue haem­or­rhag­ic fever, and ear­ly hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion and ag­gres­sive treat­ment can re­duce the risk of death. He said the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple who con­tract dengue may ex­pe­ri­ence mild symp­toms and re­cu­per­ate with­out the need for sig­nif­i­cant med­ical at­ten­tion, but a small num­ber of peo­ple may de­vel­op life-threat­en­ing com­pli­ca­tions of the virus called dengue he­m­or­rhag­ic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syn­drome (DSS).

Bo­doe, the UNC shad­ow min­is­ter for health, warned that if these com­pli­ca­tions are not de­tect­ed ear­ly and treat­ed ap­pro­pri­ate­ly and ad­e­quate­ly, it can re­sult in death from the con­se­quences of in­ter­nal bleed­ing. He not­ed that cer­tain cat­e­gories of peo­ple may be at high­er risk of DHF and DSS, such as teenagers, those with co-mor­bidi­ties, the el­der­ly and preg­nant women.

He al­so ex­pressed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of 16-year-old Quin­ton Gabriel, who died on Tues­day af­ter con­tract­ing dengue. Quin­ton, a stu­dent at Siparia West Sec­ondary School, al­so had sick­le cell.

Un­der­scor­ing the im­por­tance of cit­i­zens and health of­fi­cials be­ing aware of the symp­toms and signs of these com­pli­ca­tions, he said warn­ing signs, usu­al­ly be­gin the first day or two af­ter the fever goes away and may in­clude se­vere stom­ach pain, per­sis­tent vom­it­ing, bleed­ing from the gums or nose, bruis­ing on the skin, dif­fi­cult or rapid breath­ing, and fa­tigue.

He ad­vised against the use of as­pirin and ibupro­fen for pain and fever and in­stead use parac­eta­mol in case your vi­ral ill­ness turns out to be dengue. He al­so sug­gest­ed that front­line health of­fi­cials treat­ing dengue cas­es re­main vig­i­lant and rec­om­mend ear­ly hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion if in any doubt.

He al­so ex­pressed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of 16-year-old Quin­ton Gabriel, who died on Tues­day af­ter con­tract­ing dengue. Quin­ton, a stu­dent at Siparia West Sec­ondary School, al­so had sick­le cell. In re­sponse to com­plaints by Quin­ton’s par­ents about the treat­ment he had re­ceived at Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal, the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty stat­ed that a de­tailed in­quiry was un­der­way and they would “con­tin­ue” to be in con­tact with the next of kin. How­ev­er, his fa­ther, Kei­th Gabriel, said yes­ter­day that no one from the hos­pi­tal had con­tact­ed them.

Quin­ton’s fu­ner­al will be held to­day at Boodoos Fu­ner­al Home in Pe­nal, fol­lowed by the in­ter­ment at the Siparia ceme­tery.