Dengue mosquito (usatoday.net)

While Joy St. John, Chief Medical Officer of Barbados, was declaring a Dengue Alert on Friday, October 12, little did I know that this was quite misleading.  In actual fact, Barbados already had hundreds of Suspected and Confirmed Cases of Dengue.

It took St. John another week after the initial announcement to reveal that the country had recorded 592 Suspected Dengue Cases for the first three quarters of the year alone.  Worse still, 255 of these were Confirmed.  This translates to an active Dengue event that has obviously been building for months.

I am led to the deduction, therefore, that since it was only earlier this month that the Barbados Ministry of Health became confident enough to announce a major overhaul of the clinical protocols for the management of Dengue and the co-optation of the corporate and wider communities in enhancing mosquito surveillance and control, that the authorities were probably caught off guard by the magnitude of this event. 

Senior Environmental Health Officer, Lester Cumberbatch has now stepped up to encourage Barbadians to become more proactive by reducing the number of breeding places that allow the Dengue mosquito to breed. 

Cumberbatch, speaking to the Government of Barbados Information Network,  said “it is imperative that the community, including individuals, groups and private sector entities join in partnership with the Ministry of Health in the prevention and control of Dengue.”

He reiterated the basic rule of Dengue control, which is that “individuals should do inspections of their premises – homes, businesses and schools – weekly to ensure that there is no stagnant water and no containers that could contribute to mosquito breeding.  We need the people to help us in this effort.  The containers are increasing; people are keeping a lot of unnecessary and useless containers on their premises and these are creating problems for environmental health.” 

“Prevention is still the best response.” Cumberbatch continued.  ”Dengue fever can be prevented by maintaining a clean environment; eliminating pools of stagnant water where mosquitoes live; and covering receptacles that (are used to) store water.”

So the word is that it just takes 15 minutes a week to keep the mosquitoes away.  Simply take that time to look around your premises to identify anything that can hold ”clean water” (the Dengue mosquito does not generally breed in heavily polluted or muddy water).   Then let commonsense kick in.  Eliminate those breeding places promptly. 

Unsure as to what to do?  The Coalition is here to help.  State your problem in Comments below.

 

Update of Previous Post: Barbados joins growing list of Caribbean countries on Dengue Alert