Lo­cal health and mos­qui­to-con­trol of­fi­cials have con­firmed the Cay­man Is­lands’ first im­port­ed case of Oropouche virus dis­ease. This dis­cov­ery has sparked calls for the pub­lic to bol­ster their de­fences against vec­tor-borne dis­eases.

Oropouche virus, which spreads to hu­mans through bites from Culi­coides paraen­sis midges (a type of small fly) and Culex mos­qui­toes, has pre­vi­ous­ly been re­port­ed in South Amer­i­ca and some coun­tries of the Caribbean, ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO). While there is no ev­i­dence of com­mu­ni­ty trans­mis­sion in the Cay­man Is­lands, au­thor­i­ties have al­so con­firmed mul­ti­ple im­port­ed cas­es of dengue fever this year.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Nick Gent em­pha­sized the in­ter­con­nect­ed­ness of the re­gion, urg­ing res­i­dents to re­main vig­i­lant.

“Vec­tor-borne dis­eases are a re­minder of how con­nect­ed we are as a re­gion. By stay­ing alert and tak­ing sim­ple pre­cau­tions, we can pro­tect our­selves and our com­mu­ni­ty from the risks these dis­eases pose,” he stat­ed.

The an­nounce­ment comes amid a broad­er re­gion­al uptick in Oropouche virus cas­es. This month, Pana­ma re­port­ed its first lo­cal­ly trans­mit­ted hu­man case, with sim­i­lar out­breaks doc­u­ment­ed in Brazil, Bo­livia, Colom­bia, Pe­ru, Cu­ba, Guyana, and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. These de­vel­op­ments high­light the ur­gent need for pre­ven­tive mea­sures across the re­gion.

“Out­breaks of vec­tor-borne dis­eases, in­clud­ing Oropouche and Dengue, un­der­score the im­por­tance of pub­lic aware­ness and ac­tion,” said Rachel Cor­bett, na­tion­al epi­demi­ol­o­gist for the Min­istry of Health. “Trav­el­ers from af­fect­ed re­gions like Cu­ba and Pana­ma should use per­son­al pro­tec­tive mea­sures and mon­i­tor for symp­toms such as fever or rash up­on their re­turn,” she said.

The Cay­man Is­lands Mos­qui­to Re­search and Con­trol Unit (MR­CU) as­sured the pub­lic that it re­mains proac­tive in its ef­forts to curb mos­qui­to pop­u­la­tions and mit­i­gate the risk of dis­ease spread. Jonathan Smellie, Mol­e­c­u­lar Bi­ol­o­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry Man­ag­er, high­light­ed the coun­try’s pre­pared­ness, stat­ing, “Our abil­i­ty to test lo­cal­ly for both the Oropouche and Dengue virus­es en­sures time­ly di­ag­no­sis and a swift pub­lic health re­sponse.”

GEORGE TOWN, Cay­man Is­lands, Nov 24, CMC

CMC/nb/2024