Leah So­rias

A dengue out­break has been de­clared in T&T. The con­firmed deaths of three peo­ple due to the virus, un­con­firmed deaths of two oth­ers and more than 600 re­port­ed cas­es of dengue prompt­ed chief med­ical of­fi­cer Dr An­ton Cum­ber­batch to make the de­c­la­ra­tion yes­ter­day. Speak­ing dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at the Min­istry of Health's Park Street of­fice, Port-of-Spain, Cum­ber­batch said the num­ber of re­port­ed cas­es of dengue could be more than 600, as pri­vate health in­sti­tu­tion were not re­port­ing clin­i­cal cas­es to the min­istry. "The rainy sea­son lasts un­til De­cem­ber and we are in Ju­ly, so this is not go­ing to go away any time soon," he said. "The rate of in­crease is at out­break rate. "We may not have reached the num­bers as be­fore, but we have to de­clare that we have an out­break go­ing on."

Dengue is spread by the aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to which sur­vives and breeds in clear wa­ter. Among the symp­toms of dengue fever in­clude headache, fever, ex­haus­tion, se­vere mus­cle and joint pain, swollen glands and rash. Oth­er signs in­clude bleed­ing gums, se­vere pain be­hind the eyes, and red palms and soles. Cum­ber­batch said al­though there were clus­ters of dengue cas­es re­port­ed in spe­cif­ic ar­eas, peo­ple liv­ing in oth­er ar­eas with­out such cas­es should not feel they are out of dan­ger. He said of the five deaths, four oc­curred in South Trinidad.

161 cas­es in South

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) Paula Chester-Cum­ber­batch said up to Thurs­day, 161 peo­ple were treat­ed for dengue at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. She said this was com­pared to the 63 peo­ple treat­ed in June. She said ar­eas with preva­lent cas­es of dengue were Mara­bel­la, San Fer­nan­do, Clax­ton Bay and Gas­par­il­lo. Cum­ber­batch said if cit­i­zens did not take the threat of the virus se­ri­ous­ly, T&T would nev­er get over the prob­lem. He said dengue had been af­fect­ing T&T for the past 30 years, but be­cause of the cli­mate changes, the pat­tern has changed.

Cum­ber­batch ex­plained that nor­mal­ly the cy­cle of dengue would peak every five years, but be­cause of cli­mate change the cy­cle be­gan again with­in two years. "Two years ago, we were hav­ing the same lev­els even faster," he said. Cum­ber­batch said de­spite the Min­istry's vec­tor con­trol man­age­ment dri­ve, the pub­lic had to un­der­stand that spray­ing mos­qui­toes alone would not kill them. "We have been spray­ing in T&T since the 1940's when we had malar­ia and yel­low fever and now we have the aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to," he said. "That means we have been spray­ing for the last 70 years and every year we still have mos­qui­to in­fes­ta­tion," he added.

Treat­ment

Cum­ber­batch called on cit­i­zens to go to a health fa­cil­i­ty as soon as they dis­played of dengue. He said peo­ple should not wait un­til they start­ed to bleed from the nose and mouth to rush to hos­pi­tal. "If you are not feel­ing well, please come to us ear­ly so we can treat the virus be­fore it gets worse," he said. He said the symp­toms of dengue lasts be­tween five and sev­en days. He said some­times, at day four or five, in­fect­ed peo­ple would no­tice a de­crease in fever, but this was no in­di­ca­tion that they were out of dan­ger. He said if a per­son ex­pe­ri­enced ab­dom­i­nal pains and vom­it­ing af­ter the third or fourth day of ill­ness, that per­son should be tak­en to an emer­gency cen­tre as this was a dan­ger­ous sign.

"Bleed­ing is not an ab­solute re­quire­ment to come in­to hos­pi­tal," Cum­ber­batch said. He high­light­ed that as­pirin and as­pirin-re­lat­ed med­ica­tions should not be used at all when dengue is con­tract­ed. He said dengue caus­es bleed­ing and some as­pirin-like com­pounds pro­long the bleed­ing time, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult to treat the virus. He said Paracete­mol and Ac­eta­minophen are the safer tablets to use. "Some peo­ple need As­pirin be­cause they are heart pa­tients, but they have to be very care­ful," he said.

Pre­ven­tion guide­lines

Dengue fever is a vi­ral ill­ness trans­mit­ted by the bite of an in­fect­ed aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to. To pre­vent the spread of this dis­ease, the pub­lic is ad­vised to prac­tise source re­duc­tion through:

�2 dis­pos­al of all un­want­ed con­tain­ers in the yard or en­vi­rons which when ex­posed to the rain can col­lect wa­ter e.g. sty­ro­tex cups, bot­tles, old tyres;

�2 cov­er­ing of all wa­ter-con­tain­ing con­tain­ers such as bar­rels, drums or buck­ets with a mos­qui­to-proof cov­er­ing;

�2 check­ing your gut­ter­ing and mak­ing sure that the wa­ter flows freely with­out any ob­struc­tion by leaves or branch­es, and gut­ter­ing is free from any kinks.

�2 emp­ty­ing the pan un­der the re­frig­er­a­tor which can col­lect wa­ter;

�2 emp­ty­ing and scrub­bing the sides of wa­ter vas­es or us­ing dirt or sand in­stead to sup­port the flow­ers;

�2 en­sur­ing that the drains in your com­pound al­low the free flow of wa­ter.

If there is a mos­qui­to in­fes­ta­tion, please call In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol at 663 2281 or email the Min­istry at cor­p­comm@health.gov.tt.

Source: Min­istry of Health