This St. Maarten blogger’s frustration over the scourge of Dengue in SXM is palpable as defined by this January 14 post on her blog, Barbara Talks! A St. Maarten Blog!
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Let’s talk about St. Maarten. That’s where I live. Dengue on St. Maarten is what I want to know about. I want to know what the government is doing to combat these mosquitoes. Ah, but that is what is hard to find out. To say that the reporting on the Dutch side is less than reliable is putting it mildly. And I am not sure about the French side either.
A recent article in The Daily Herald from October 01, 2007 states that we are still on “pre-dengue alert,” whatever that means. It also states that as of the end of November, 18 lab cases of Dengue (were confirmed). Eighteen? Doesn’t sound like many, does it? Then on Saturday January 12, 2008, I read in the same paper that the French side had 110 Suspected Cases as of January but only 13 (were) confirmed. Let me quote more from that…article:“The number of clinically suspected dengue cases went down in the last weeks of December 2007 and the first week of January (2008), but there is no change to the current epidemic status on the French side, a report in St. Martin’s Week stated.
The figure is estimated at 110 suspected cases as of the first week in January and 750 since the beginning of the epidemic in the second week of November.
Since the beginning of December the number of hospitalised cases has increased by 4, bringing the total up to 13 biologically confirmed hospitalised cases. The patients include 4 children and 9 adults, six of whom were in serious condition.
The predominant virus serotype since the rainy season has begun has been DEN-1. However, serotypes DEN-2 and DEN-4 are also circulating…
St. Barths has been in a pre-alert phase since mid-November and DEN-1 is the predominant serotype. 4 adults have been hospitalised there, 3 of whom were in serious condition, but no more biologically confirmed cases have been hospitalised since mid-December. 30 suspected cases were registered during the first week of January.
The committee of experts for infectious diseases plans to meet next week to assess the situation on both islands.”Are you asking the same question as I am? If they suspect 110 cases, how in the world are only 13 cases confirmed? Is it that hard to confirm? I may be wrong but doesn’t a simple blood test confirm Dengue? So are people not being referred for blood tests? Couldn’t the article (have) read something like…110 suspected cases, 97 were ruled out and 13 were confirmed? Shouldn’t everyone be sent for a blood test if…Dengue (is) suspected? I just don’t quite get it!The last article also stated that Suspected Cases were down but the epidemic is still on, which brings me to another question. How can you have an epidemic on one side of the island but only a pre-epidemic on the other side?
I know. I know…different governments…different ways of reporting and assessing.
I still wonder how much is really being done to fight off this damn mosquito.
