RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

In re­sponse to the alarm­ing rise in dengue cas­es, pub­lic health in­spec­tors in T&T have been au­tho­rized to is­sue fines of $3,500 to cit­i­zens if their premis­es be­come breed­ing grounds for mos­qui­toes.

This was re­vealed by Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh as he spoke on the Morn­ing Brew on Tues­day about the dra­mat­ic in­crease in dengue cas­es across the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca.

High­light­ing the sever­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion, Deyals­ingh said there has been a 300 per cent in­crease in dengue cas­es in the Caribbean.

"We need to get the pop­u­la­tion to un­der­stand that while spray­ing is part of the re­sponse, source re­duc­tion is cru­cial. Look at scrap­yards, clean up your lots, and en­sure your sur­round­ings are free from po­ten­tial mos­qui­to breed­ing sites or you will be fined," he warned.

He said the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca have been se­vere­ly im­pact­ed by dengue fever.

"Glob­al­ly, as of April, there have been 3.4 mil­lion con­firmed cas­es, with 16,000 se­vere cas­es and 3,000 deaths. This is a glob­al Caribbean, Latin Amer­i­can prob­lem," Deyals­ingh said.

He not­ed that lo­cal­ly the num­ber of con­firmed dengue cas­es has risen sharply.

"When I first ad­dressed the pop­u­la­tion three weeks ago, the num­ber of con­firmed lab­o­ra­to­ry cas­es was 123. We are now at 229 lab-con­firmed cas­es, with two con­firmed deaths," he re­vealed.

Asked what mea­sures will be tak­en to pro­tect cit­i­zens in ar­eas like Wood­land, Pe­nal and Bar­rack­pore where wa­ter­cours­es are clogged, Deyals­ingh said the Aedes Egyp­ti mos­qui­to breeds in clear, clean, still wa­ter, rather than mud­dy, dirty wa­ter.

He em­pha­sized that chem­i­cal spray­ing alone is in­suf­fi­cient to con­trol mos­qui­to pop­u­la­tions.

"Over­spray­ing has two out­comes: the mos­qui­toes be­come re­sis­tant, and you kill off the en­tire ecosys­tem. Over­spray­ing is harm­ful to hu­man and an­i­mal life," he ex­plained.

He ad­vo­cat­ed for source re­duc­tion not­ing, "Clean­ing your sur­round­ings is cru­cial, and un­less the pop­u­la­tion en­gages in source re­duc­tion, so mos­qui­toes don't breed, we will not elim­i­nate them."

To com­bat the spread of dengue, Deyals­ingh said the gov­ern­ment will im­ple­ment stricter mea­sures.

"Pub­lic health in­spec­tors will be au­tho­rized to is­sue fines un­der the Yel­low Fever Reg­u­la­tions to res­i­dents who fail to main­tain their prop­er­ties. We will give you sev­en days to clean up your act, and if you don't, you will be fined," Deyals­ingh warned.

This in­cludes clean­ing gut­ter­ing, re­mov­ing derelict ve­hi­cles and clean­ing up old tyres.

He said the surge in dengue cas­es is con­cen­trat­ed in the coun­ties of Vic­to­ria, Ca­roni, and St. Patrick, which ac­count for 90 per cent of the cas­es.

Deyals­ingh stressed the im­por­tance of com­mu­ni­ty co­op­er­a­tion to com­bat the spread of the dis­ease. "Mos­qui­toes fly with­in a 100-me­ter range. We can't en­cour­age mos­qui­toes," he said.

Mean­while, Pri­ma­ry Care Physi­cian II, of the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, Dr San­di Arthur of­fered ad­vice on how to man­age dengue.

"Your body can fight it off. Stick to ac­eta­minophen (parac­eta­mol) and avoid non-steroidal drugs, which can ex­ac­er­bate symp­toms," she said.

Arthur al­so pro­vid­ed guide­lines on rec­og­niz­ing se­vere dengue symp­toms, such as se­vere ab­dom­i­nal pain, lethar­gy, and rest­less­ness, urg­ing in­di­vid­u­als to seek med­ical at­ten­tion im­me­di­ate­ly if these oc­cur.