Senior Reporter
dareece.polo@guardian.co.tt
Private labs have recorded a spike in dengue infections across south, south-west and central Trinidad and have already registered higher cases than the Ministry of Health (MoH).
Guardian Media reached out to labs testing samples from Victoria, Caroni, and St Patrick and found an exponential increase in positive dengue cases. This corroborates data provided by the Ministry of Health, which notes that these counties make up the top three of the eight in Trinidad.
According to the MoH, Victoria has the highest number of dengue infections at 29 per cent, Caroni follows with 27 per cent, and St Patrick is third with 24 per cent. St George East has 11 per cent, St George West accounts for six per cent, and St George Central has the remaining three per cent.
In one lab in south Trinidad, which tests samples from Victoria and St Patrick counties, 26 people were confirmed positive in April. The lab said that the figure rose to 27 in May, 115 in June, and 54 for the first 11 days of July.
One lab in central Trinidad said half of their samples are positive for dengue, and they receive an average of ten daily. Another in east Trinidad said they have 32 positive dengue cases from 60 samples taken between June 1 and July 11. The labs in Victoria and east Trinidad have a combined 254 cases compared to the MoH’s 229 cases so far for 2024.
It’s important to note that the private labs are all performing immunoglobulin G (IgG), immunoglobulin M (IgM) and nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) antigen tests instead of the ministry’s preferred polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. PCR tests are considered the most reliable means of diagnosis. It can determine the presence of the virus itself as well as which of the four serotypes is causing the infection.
However, they are more expensive than antigen tests. IgG tests tell if a patient has been infected with dengue within the past three months and can exist in a human for a lifetime, IgM states if it’s a present infection, and NS1 detects the virus within the first seven days of illness.
Regional corporations in the hardest hit counties are ramping up efforts to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito following reports of a rise in dengue cases.
Chairman of the Penal/Debe Regional Corporation, Gowtam Maharaj, stated that they are implementing measures to combat the dengue virus. However, he is concerned that the Ministry of Health may be inadvertently underreporting the actual number of confirmed infections.
“In the interest of improving whatever programme the Ministry of Health has, they should begin taking some input from the regional corporations and investigating it because it may yield that what we are reporting on is really a truthful fact and that maybe the data that is reaching the national surveillance unit ... is a bit superficial in the sense that it doesn’t touch everywhere and every corner.”
He said the figures presented by the ministry are from public hospitals and health centres but neglect the private sector.
Nevertheless, he said his corporation has started fogging nearly 1,000 homes targeted per day, drainage cleaning, and a dedicated education drive for source reduction that will begin next Tuesday. He said collaboration was necessary as corporations are under-resourced.
“The Insect Vector Control Division has the specialists. I’m securing a meeting with IVCD personnel and the CMOHs (county medical officers of health) to be able to see how we can achieve this collaboration. We did have a meeting on Tuesday of last week, and it yielded that the St Patrick side is short of vehicles to be able to cover the area.
“We are also offering, in the interest of the people, a collaborative effort there ... that if they (IVCD) have the chemicals, which they do, they have the machinery, and they have the personnel, we are willing to find some way to offer vehicles and do some type of partnership.”
The Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation is also cleaning drains and fogging, and the chairman has taken offence to the Health Minister’s suggestion that some corporations are politicising the dengue issue.
He said the Government should be blamed, as the Ministry of Works, for instance, has allegedly failed to clear their watercourses. He alleged that this was causing water to pool in communities for mosquitoes to breed.
“You have lots of pockets of water depositing and settling all over with WASA leak and so on. The Government is very much complicit in this matter also, so we can’t just blame the citizens alone.
“In addition to pointing blame towards the Minister of Health and the Minister of Works and all the other relevant ministers, Public Utilities with WASA and so on, we are working along with the stakeholder agencies.”
He said yesterday, that the CTTRC launched a massive joint effort in Tabaquite, which was identified as a hotspot by the IVCD and CMOH.
“Our work is data-driven. We are not going in ad-hoc and anywhere. We had trucks and workmen in the Tabaquite area, and we are doing perifocal work. We have our workers entering people’s properties and looking to see where there are breeding sources, and so on. We are doing source reduction. We have asked the residents to place all containers by the roadway. We had a good response.”
He said that despite being short of 400 workers, the corporation was continuing to clean drains and collaborate to remove tyres and other debris.
Meanwhile, Clyde James, the mayor of the Point Fortin Borough Corporation, stated that although they have not had a high number of confirmed dengue infections, they are actively spraying and engaging with their residents online to promote cleaner surroundings.