Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A med­ical doc­tor is urg­ing the pub­lic to adopt pre­cau­tion­ary and pre­ven­tive mea­sures against the dead­ly dengue virus amid a surge in cas­es in the coun­try. In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Dr Joel Teelucks­ingh high­light­ed the rise in dengue cas­es across Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. He not­ed that the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) re­port­ed an in­creas­ing num­ber of cas­es, with Puer­to Ri­co de­clar­ing dengue a pub­lic health emer­gency in March.

“Dengue, al­though it is en­dem­ic in T&T and that word means it is present at a cer­tain lev­el through­out the year, there has been an in­creased rate of hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion due to dengue fever and se­vere dengue,” Teelucks­ingh ex­plained.

He an­tic­i­pat­ed that the dengue cas­es would in­crease dur­ing the rainy sea­son.

“This in­crease is con­cern­ing and it is crit­i­cal for the pub­lic to be aware of the warn­ing signs of se­vere dengue, pre­ven­tion mea­sures and nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to pro­tect your fam­i­lies,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh ad­vised mon­i­tor­ing for se­vere symp­toms, in­clud­ing se­vere ab­dom­i­nal pain, per­sis­tent vom­it­ing, short­ness of breath or rapid breath­ing, in­creas­ing list­less­ness, rest­less­ness, con­fu­sion, or blood in vom­it or stool. He stressed that these symp­toms re­quired im­me­di­ate hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion.

“Pre­ven­tion is key in con­trol­ling dengue,” he said.

“Peo­ple must elim­i­nate breed­ing grounds of the Aedes Ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to in and around their prop­er­ties, in­clud­ing re­mov­ing stag­nant wa­ter in items such as tires, flower pots, and buck­ets. To pre­vent mos­qui­to bites, wear long-sleeved cloth­ing and socks, and use mos­qui­to re­pel­lents and nets.” He al­so warned against us­ing non-steroidal an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry drugs like as­pirin and ibupro­fen, as they could in­crease the risk of bleed­ing.

“It is im­por­tant to stay vig­i­lant and proac­tive not just in pre­vent­ing mos­qui­to bites but in elim­i­nat­ing the breed­ing grounds of the vec­tor and seek­ing med­ical at­ten­tion prompt­ly if you sus­pect se­vere dengue and if any red flags are present,” he added.

Mean­while, Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayhroo re­port­ed 125 cas­es, with 20 con­firmed, across the Siparia re­gion. Trag­i­cal­ly, a 16-year-old girl from Fyz­abad suc­cumbed to the virus about two weeks ago.

Al­though spray­ing and fog­ging are the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Min­istry of Health’s In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion (IVCD), May­or Mayhroo not­ed that the cor­po­ra­tion had been as­sist­ing with lim­it­ed re­sources and man­pow­er. He men­tioned that the IVCD had a trans­port is­sue two weeks ago, but it was un­clear if it had been re­solved.

“We have al­ready cov­ered a greater part of the Fyz­abad/Av­o­cat area this week. Spray­ing has been con­duct­ed in San Fran­cique and Pluck Road,” he said, adding that to­day they would be vis­it­ing Ce­dros.

Tu­na­puna Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man De­sell Austin said they re­ceived re­ports in Wa­ter­field, Kel­ly Vil­lage, and Ma­tu­ri­ta ar­eas, and the IVCD was han­dling these re­ports with as­sis­tance where pos­si­ble.

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ker­wyn Phillip re­port­ed no cas­es but re­ceived sev­er­al re­quests for spray­ing. He stat­ed that the IVCD is work­ing close­ly with the cor­po­ra­tion, and they had a meet­ing with them on Wednes­day.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh last week de­nied claims of hun­dreds of cas­es, stat­ing that there were 123 cas­es be­tween Jan­u­ary and May. The min­is­ter al­so men­tioned that in prepa­ra­tion for the rainy sea­son, the min­istry had start­ed its dengue and mos­qui­to sen­si­ti­sa­tion pro­gramme as ear­ly as Feb­ru­ary.