RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Just a day af­ter dengue vic­tim Robin Ma­hadeo was cre­mat­ed, his griev­ing fam­i­ly faces yet an­oth­er heart-wrench­ing or­deal. They are now pray­ing that they don’t have to en­dure an­oth­er tragedy as Ma­hadeo’s niece, Mar­sha, 45, clings to life in the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

So far, 11 peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty are sus­pect­ed to be in­fect­ed with dengue fever, as the main source of the mos­qui­to in­fes­ta­tion comes from the stag­nat­ing la­goons in front of their homes.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area, tyres lit­tered one prop­er­ty near­by, serv­ing as po­ten­tial breed­ing grounds for mos­qui­toes. An­oth­er set of tyres hung along the front of a wall, cre­ative­ly re­pur­posed as plant pots for or­na­men­tal plants. At their Ram­sub­hag Trace, Bar­rack­pore home, Robin’s broth­er Mahin­dra Ma­hadeo said the mos­qui­toes seem to have be­come im­mune to spray­ing.

“Every day we spray the place with malathion, but that is not stop­ping these mos­qui­toes,” Mahin­dra said.

He said since the on­set of the rains, the wa­ter from the la­goons has be­come stag­nant. “It usu­al­ly flows out in­to the riv­er, but for six months now that riv­er is clogged, so the la­goon wa­ter backs up and just sits there stag­nat­ing,” Mahin­dra said.

He ex­plained that mil­lions of mos­qui­to lar­vae hatch every day in the la­goons. Mahin­dra said since the dengue spike, they have been wor­ried.

“In the space of one week, 11 peo­ple got dengue. I got it 15 days ago, and it was re­al­ly ter­ri­ble. Plen­ty of body aches, you feel­ing sleepy and you can’t eat. All you can do is drink liq­uid. The on­ly tablet to ease it is parac­eta­mol,” he said.

He called on the au­thor­i­ties to clear their clogged drains and open ac­cess out of the flood­ed la­goons. “If the wa­ter could flow out of the la­goon, it wouldn’t have so many mos­qui­toes,” Mahin­dra said.

He begged, “Clean up the drainage, com­ing to spray once a year doesn’t make any sense.”

Say­ing his fam­i­ly was in mourn­ing, Mahin­dra added, “My broth­er Robin died from dengue, and Mar­sha, my niece, is in ICU. This is some­thing we can­not bear. Every­body is get­ting sick.”

Mean­while, chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Gow­tam Ma­haraj said the cor­po­ra­tion has been spray­ing 1,100 hous­es per day and clear­ing wa­ter­cours­es. “We cleared the Mitchell Chan­nel, the chan­nel near Ramd­har­rie Trace, the Chovie Chan­nel. Right now, there is an ex­ca­va­tor clear­ing Ram­sub­hag to Ma­habir Trace.”

He said the back­hoes and ex­ca­va­tors have been clear­ing the wa­ter­cours­es, but he said most of the wa­ter­ways fall un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Min­istry of Works and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, and he wants their help to get the ar­eas cleaned up,” Ma­haraj said.

At Clarke Road, a pri­vate landown­er re­port­ed­ly stopped the PDRC ex­ca­va­tor from clear­ing the drain be­cause she had ba­nana trees plant­ed. Car­ol Ram­bal­ly said her grand­son got in­fect­ed with dengue, and re­ports were made to the PDRC. “The ex­ca­va­tor can­not clear the drain with­out push­ing down the fig trees. We want the drains cleaned. Peo­ple are caus­ing their own prob­lems,” she said.

“It has so many mos­qui­toes you can­not sit down in the yard,” she said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Ma­hadeo Sookdeo, who is re­cov­er­ing from a stroke, said he was con­cerned about the clogged drains. “I feel this is very un­rea­son­able.”

The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency said last week­end that the dengue sit­u­a­tion had in­creased 200-fold in the Amer­i­c­as when com­pared to sta­tis­tics from the first quar­ter of 2023 and 2024. All coun­tries in the Amer­i­c­as have been urged to re­main vig­i­lant about the spread of dengue.