The Min­istry of Health is re­port­ing there are now 911 lab­o­ra­to­ry con­firmed cas­es of Dengue Fever with­in the coun­try, while the num­ber of lab-con­firmed deaths re­mains steady at eight.

In the Min­istry’s most re­cent epi­demi­o­log­i­cal up­date and ad­vi­so­ry, is­sued ear­li­er to­day, it al­so re­ports that as of Au­gust 21, 2024, a to­tal of 503 yel­low fever no­tices have been is­sued to prop­er­ty own­ers/oc­cu­piers, di­rect­ing them to clean up their sur­round­ings.

“Of this, 16 prop­er­ty own­ers/oc­cu­piers have, thus far been iden­ti­fied for the con­sid­er­a­tion/in­sti­tu­tion of le­gal pro­ceed­ings for non-com­pli­ance,” the Min­istry re­vealed.

The Health Min­istry is urg­ing the pub­lic to do as much as pos­si­ble to re­duce the spread of dengue by mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for the Aedes Ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to to find breed­ing grounds.  It ad­vis­es cit­i­zens to:

1.    Dis­pose of all un­want­ed ar­ti­cles, derelict ve­hi­cles or ap­pli­ances in the yard or en­vi­rons which can col­lect wa­ter and be­come mos­qui­to breed­ing grounds.

2.    Cov­er wa­ter con­tain­ers such as tanks, bar­rels, drums or buck­ets with a mos­qui­to proof cov­er­ing.

3.    Cut down and re­move all bush or un­der­growth that can har­bour mos­qui­toes.

4.    Clean drains and gut­ter­ing to al­low for the free flow of wa­ter.

5.    Use mos­qui­to nets and in­sect re­pel­lent, when ap­pro­pri­ate as a means of per­son­al pro­tec­tion.

The Health Min­istry al­so is re­mind­ing the pub­lic that dengue fever symp­toms ap­pear with­in 5-6 days of be­ing bit­ten, and last for 1-2 weeks.

It urges any­one show­ing signs or symp­toms of Dengue Fever to seek im­me­di­ate med­ical treat­ment at their doc­tor or the near­est Health Fa­cil­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the Health Min­istry, the signs and symp­toms to look out for in­clude:

●   Fever

●   Headaches (some­times se­vere)

●   Pain be­hind eyes

●   Mus­cle and joint pains

●   Skin rash

●   Nau­sea / Vom­it­ing

●   Di­ar­rhoea