Shal­iza Has­sanali

A sharp rise in the num­ber of con­firmed dengue cas­es in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty of Guaico Tamana in San­gre Grande is cre­at­ing fear and pan­ic among res­i­dents. Chief med­ical of­fi­cer of the Min­istry of Health Dr An­ton Cum­ber­batch, how­ev­er, sees the 16 cas­es in the area and death of 27-year-old Anush­ka Bu­choon, al­so from that com­mu­ni­ty, as "a clus­ter of cas­es" rather than an out­break. Cum­ber­batch said an out­break would on­ly be an­nounced when it af­fects the en­tire coun­try and not one ge­o­graph­i­cal dis­trict. But COP health­care spokesman Dr Navi Mu­radali begged to dif­fer, stat­ing that once there were mul­ti­ple cas­es with­in a dis­trict "it's an out­break."

At least 13 con­firmed dengue cas­es were stum­bled up­on by the Sun­day Guardian dur­ing an hour of prob­ing two side streets along the Guaico Tamana Road, while two oth­ers were re­port­ed in Quash Trace, San­gre Grande, with one woman be­ing test­ed pos­i­tive at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal (SGH) on Fri­day.

There were al­so two sus­pect­ed cas­es in Guaico Tamana. Dengue haem­or­rhag­ic fever is an ill­ness trans­mit­ted by the aedes egyp­ti mos­qui­to. At Moon­light Av­enue, Karen Ro­jas and her two sons Christo­pher and Sabi­nus, fresh from be­ing dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal, were thank­ing God for spar­ing their lives. Af­ter be­ing re­peat­ed­ly told to come back to the hos­pi­tal, the fam­i­ly said they had no choice but to vis­it a pri­vate doc­tor and fork out $1,200 for tests and ex­am­i­na­tions.

Long wait at hos­pi­tal

The tests showed that the platelets of the three were dan­ger­ous­ly low. They were giv­en re­fer­ral let­ters by their doc­tor to be ad­mit­ted to the hos­pi­tal, but com­plained they had to wait for eight hours be­fore be­ing ward­ed. Ro­jas felt that the in­crease in the num­ber of cas­es was be­ing caused by in­suf­fi­cient fog­ging to rid the mos­qui­toes.

Ro­jas' neigh­bour, Sel­wyn Hug­gins and his 16-year-old daugh­ter Sar­alee–both in se­vere pain–feared they, too, had the virus. Though blood was drawn from them, they were told to re­turn to the hos­pi­tal to­day for the re­sults. "Be­tween now and Sun­day I don't know what will hap­pen," said Hug­gins. Just two streets away, at St Aine's Trace, Rakesh Ra­goo­bar, Steve Sama­roo and Adri­an Cam­po were test­ed pos­i­tive days af­ter their neigh­bour, Bu­choon, suc­cumbed to the ill­ness.

ABOVE LEFT: Christo­pher Ro­jas, one of the 16 con­firmed dengue cas­es in the Guaico Tamana area.

ABOVE RIGHT: Steve Sama­roo and Adri­an Cam­po were test­ed pos­i­tive for dengue.

Ra­goo­bar said min­utes af­ter be­ing ad­mit­ted he dis­charged him­self from the hos­pi­tal and vis­it­ed a pri­vate doc­tor, rack­ing up a $3,800 bills in drips, tests and med­ica­tion. "I could stay there af­ter Anush­ka's death? If I had to die I want­ed to be at home," he said. Sama­roo said af­ter hours of con­stant pain, fever and his body cov­ered in rash, he walked out of the hos­pi­tal. "By night­fall I col­lapsed and had to be rushed to the hos­pi­tal," said Sama­roo, who ap­pealed to Health Min­is­ter Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis for swift and bet­ter ser­vice. Cam­po, whose home is sur­round­ed by bush­es, said it was on­ly af­ter he faint­ed doc­tors came to his aid. Along Guaico Tamana Road, Haim Ra­goo­nanan said he al­most lost his life af­ter dis­cov­er­ing that the dengue was caus­ing him to bleed in­ter­nal­ly.

Clutch­ing her chest and sit­ting among a long line of pa­tients at the hos­pi­tal was Jen­nifer Le Blanc, who was wait­ing to be ad­mit­ted af­ter be­ing told by her pri­vate doc­tor that she had test­ed pos­i­tive for dengue. "I came here yes­ter­day but there were so many pa­tients I went to my pri­vate doc­tor. Now I am back to­day to face the grind again."

Vic­tims

16 con­firmed dengue cas­es:

Christo­pher Ro­jas

Sabi­nus Ro­jas

Karen Ro­jas

Rakesh Ra­goo­bar

Adri­an Cam­po

Steve Sama­roo

Kester Roberts

Keine Ser­rette

Renon Ser­rette

Haim Ra­goo­nanan

Kwe­si Gor­don

Cyn­thia Scott

Kirt Scott

Pa­tri­cia Scott

Sarah Morang

Jen­nifer Le Blanc

2 sus­pect­ed cas­es:

Sel­wyn Hug­gins

Sar­alee Hug­gins

1 dengue death:

Anush­ka Bu­choon

Cum­ber­batch promis­es help

Yes­ter­day, Dr An­ton Cum­ber­batch, chief med­ical of­fi­cer of health (CMOH), promised to look in­to the long wait at the hos­pi­tal and the area the cas­es sur­faced to do in­tense work. Cum­ber­batch said if the res­i­dents' sur­round­ings were not clean, the health in­spec­tor would have to vis­it to en­sure that they were not en­cour­ag­ing the mos­qui­toes to breed. "I will speak to the hos­pi­tal CEO and hos­pi­tal med­ical di­rec­tor to make sure that is cor­rect­ed." Cum­ber­batch said if there is a clus­ter of cas­es, the In­spec­tor Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion would go in­to the area and spray. How­ev­er if the trans­mis­sion con­tin­ues, the min­istry would re­turn in a month's time and spray house to house. The ef­fects of the spray, Cum­ber­batch said, lasts four weeks. Cum­ber­batch said apart from one con­firmed dengue death there were "two ad­di­tion­al re­port­ed deaths."