RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) has re­port­ed a 200-fold in­crease in sus­pect­ed dengue cas­es in the Amer­i­c­as.

Con­fir­ma­tion of this up­surge in cas­es across the re­gion came as a Fyz­abad teenag­er be­came T&T’s lat­est dengue fa­tal­i­ty. De­tails of the death are now known but a se­nior med­ical source said she died two weeks ago.

A post about the death on X stat­ed, “I don’t know why (id­ky) this isn’t big news but peo­ple should know Dengue is back and with a vengeance!!!! My friend died this morn­ing af­ter be­ing sick for a week. Please keep your yards clean. Don’t lit­ter, don’t leave bod­ies of wa­ter un­cov­ered at any time.”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, CARPHA re­port­ed in­creased dengue out­breaks, hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions, and deaths, along­side new cas­es of Zi­ka and Chikun­gun­ya. In­ter­im Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Dr Lisa In­dar urged mem­ber states to in­ten­si­fy sur­veil­lance, pre­ven­tion and con­trol mea­sures to curb the trans­mis­sion of ar­bovirus­es.

As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Sur­veil­lance, Dis­ease Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol, and Head Vec­tor Borne Dis­eases at CARPHA Dr Ho­race Cox called for strength­ened in­te­grat­ed vec­tor man­age­ment strate­gies, es­pe­cial­ly with the on­set of the hur­ri­cane sea­son. This in­cludes elim­i­nat­ing mos­qui­to breed­ing sites to re­duce lar­vae num­bers.

Ra­jesh Ra­goo, Se­nior Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer for Vec­tor-Borne Dis­eases at CARPHA, high­light­ed the im­por­tance of com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment in com­bat­ing mos­qui­to-borne dis­eases. 

The re­gion­al agency al­so urged mem­ber states to en­hance mos­qui­to con­trol ac­tiv­i­ties, re­view pre­pared­ness and re­sponse plans, and main­tain ro­bust sur­veil­lance, ear­ly di­ag­no­sis, and time­ly care for ar­bovi­ral dis­ease cas­es to pre­vent se­vere com­pli­ca­tions.

The Health Min­istry con­firmed yes­ter­day that there have been two dengue-re­lat­ed deaths and 190 con­firmed cas­es of dengue fever as of June.

The Min­istry said it had ramped up its sen­si­ti­za­tion ac­tiv­i­ties since Feb­ru­ary to com­bat the spread of the virus which has surged in oth­er parts of the world. In ad­di­tion, clin­i­cal train­ing had been pro­vid­ed to re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties on dengue signs, symp­toms and treat­ment, along with ex­ten­sive pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns and so­cial me­dia pro­mo­tions em­pha­sis­ing the re­duc­tion of Aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to breed­ing sites.

Pub­lic out­reach events were held at Trinci­ty, Gulf City, and Long Cir­cu­lar Malls to as­sist cit­i­zens in iden­ti­fy­ing dengue symp­toms and high­light­ing the im­por­tance of elim­i­nat­ing mos­qui­to breed­ing grounds.

May­or of Siparia Dood­nath Mayrhoo and chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Gow­tam Ma­haraj both com­plained about a short­age of man­pow­er and equip­ment at the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion (IVCD.

How­ev­er, the Health Min­istry said it us­es mul­ti­ple spray­ing meth­ods to con­trol the adult mos­qui­to pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing in­door resid­ual spray­ing, which ap­plies in­sec­ti­cide on hard sur­faces with­in homes and is ef­fec­tive for up to three months. Ther­mal fog­ging us­es hand-held de­vices to ap­ply chem­i­cals around build­ings and open spaces, while ul­tra-low-vol­ume Spray­ing utilis­es truck-mount­ed de­vices to spray in­sec­ti­cide over large out­door ar­eas.

Ear­li­er this month, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh warned against in­dis­crim­i­nate use of chem­i­cals. He said over-spray­ing is detri­men­tal to the health of an­i­mals and hu­mans.

Deyals­ingh urged cit­i­zens to elim­i­nate mos­qui­to breed­ing grounds in con­tain­ers like flower pot saucers, vas­es, tyres, buck­ets, bar­rels, and wa­ter stor­age con­tain­ers. He al­so said there should be reg­u­lar clean­ing of gut­ters and drains as even small amounts of stag­nant wa­ter can be­come breed­ing sites.