Cas­san­dra Thomp­son

There is an out­break of dengue fever in To­ba­go says Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health Dr Murchi­son Melville.

He was speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence at the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA) of­fice yes­ter­day. Melville said while there were no dengue deaths the sta­tis­tics showed a trend of an out­break. He added: "The amount of cas­es re­port­ed to date is 159 cas­es, 55 were pos­i­tive and that gives a per­cent­age of 35 per cent.

"If you com­pare the fig­ures from last year–Jan­u­ary 1 to Ju­ly 25, 2009–there is an in­crease in the amount of cas­es that were pos­i­tive." He said the cur­rent fig­ures were ob­tained by rapid test "and these are on­ly screen­ing re­sults and are not con­fir­ma­to­ry. "These are sent to the Trinidad Pub­lic Health lab where they will say whether it is pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive." he added.

Melville said there was an out­break be­cause this year's fig­ures were 50 per cent high­er than last year's. He said from Feb­ru­ary to May 2010 there was a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline in the in­ci­dence of dengue in To­ba­go. How­ev­er, he added, from June a resur­gence was ob­vi­ous.

To­ba­go dengue cas­es for 2010

�2 Jan­u­ary: 45 cas­es re­port­ed, 16 pos­i­tive;

�2 Feb­ru­ary:17 cas­es re­port­ed, eight pos­i­tive;

�2 March: 13 cas­es re­port­ed, two pos­i­tive;

�2 April: 12 cas­es re­port­ed, one pos­i­tive;

�2 May: 13 cas­es re­port­ed, one pos­i­tive;

�2 June: 24 cas­es re­port­ed, six pos­i­tive; and,

�2 Ju­ly 1 to 25: 48 cas­es re­port­ed, 21 pos­i­tive

Melville said the ar­eas where pos­i­tive cas­es were iden­ti­fied in Ju­ly were Char­lott­teville, Belle Gar­den, Bethel, Ply­mouth, Les Coteaux, Sou Sou Lands, Mt Thomas, Carn­bee, Rock­ly Vale and Bon Ac­cord.