Geisha Kow­lessar

It is in­evitable the zi­ka virus will hit this coun­try, warned Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh at a work­shop to de­vel­op a re­gion­al net­work on sur­veil­lance and di­ag­no­sis of emerg­ing vec­tor-borne dis­eases in the Caribbean.

The work­shop was held yes­ter­day at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain.

The min­is­ter said there were no con­firmed cas­es of the virus in this coun­try.

Deyals­ingh said mem­bers of the pub­lic al­so played a ma­jor part in keep­ing their premis­es clean, adding that ed­u­ca­tion was al­so key in en­sur­ing that.

"The min­istry has been putting out bul­letins and oth­er in­for­ma­tion to talk about zi­ka and alert the pop­u­la­tion.

"This is not a se­vere ill­ness as chikun­gun­ya or dengue but there are some con­cerns that zi­ka will come to T&T at some point," Deyals­ingh added.

He said in Brazil, for in­stance, there was a link be­tween zi­ka and ba­bies be­ing born with small heads.

"So that is some­thing we are go­ing to be alert­ing the pub­lic about, but it hasn't been con­firmed that those ba­bies born with small heads is as a re­sult of zi­ka," Deyals­ingh added.

Asked whether hos­pi­tals were pre­pared to deal with zi­ka, he said most cas­es could be treat­ed at home.

"The pop­u­la­tion which is most sus­cep­ti­ble are chil­dren and the el­der­ly. Keep them hy­drat­ed, keep the fever down and give them parac­eta­mol," Deyals­ingh said.

He said chikun­gun­ya still posed a prob­lem to T&T as it "comes and goes in waves."

On the is­sue of va­cant lots, he said the laws re­mained un­clear as to whose re­spon­si­bil­i­ty it was to clean them.

The min­is­ter added that too many peo­ple were squat­ting along the riverbeds, an­oth­er pos­si­ble breed­ing ground for mos­qui­toes.

"It is clear we can­not be­come com­pla­cent and con­sid­er yel­low fever and malar­ia to be his­tor­i­cal dis­eases fit on­ly for our archives.

"Giv­en the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact of glob­al­i­sa­tion, ur­ban­i­sa­tion and cli­mate change, the Caribbean re­gion will con­tin­ue to wage war with emerg­ing and re-emerg­ing vec­tor-borne dis­eases," Deyals­ingh added.

?MORE IN­FO

Zi­ka fever is a mos­qui­to-borne vi­ral dis­ease caused by zi­ka virus con­sist­ing of mild fever, rash (most­ly mac­u­lo-papu­lar), headaches, arthral­gia, myal­gia, as­the­nia, and non-pu­ru­lent con­junc­tivi­tis, oc­cur­ring about three to 12 days af­ter the mos­qui­to vec­tor bite.

One out of four peo­ple may not de­vel­op symp­toms but in those who are af­fect­ed the dis­ease is usu­al­ly mild with symp­toms that can last be­tween two and sev­en days.

Its clin­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion is of­ten sim­i­lar to dengue, al­so a mos­qui­to-borne ill­ness.

Source: Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO)