The Ministry of Health in Antigua reported on Thursday, January 24, 2008 that the country now has 3 (three) Confirmed Cases of Dengue on record. According to Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr. Oritta Zachariah, there may likely be unconfirmed cases of the disease.
Blood samples have since been flown to the region’s premier testing laboratory at the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC) in Trinidad for serological confirmation and to determine the causative serotype involved. No date was given when the results will become known.
Chief Environmental Health Officer Lionel Michael revealed that two teams of Aedes aegypti Inspectors have been deployed, one in rural areas and the other in urban environs, to conduct regular fumigation and door to door inspections.
Chief EHO Lionel Michael has assured Antiguans that his Department received some new fogging machines in December 2007, which places him is in a better position to tackle the adult aegypti population.
However, he acknowledged that the best way to control the Dengue mosquito is for the householders – not “Government” – to do the simple things: to eliminate the places where mosquitoes breed and hide. They must identify and manage all ’artificial containers’ such as buckets, old tyres and flower vases that can hold water for they will inevitably attract the mosquitoes and allow them to lay their eggs. This is the reason why he has inspectors going from house to house.
He must be careful though that the inspectors go about eliminating the breeding places without involving Antiguans in the fight by teaching them how to conduct mosquito surveys on their properties and by empowering them to continue monitoring their premises after the inspectors walk away. If the people do not take ownership of the preventative measures that will further the fight against the further spread of the disease, rest assured that the number of Dengue cases will rise no matter how much fogging is done and how many inspections are conducted.
Rest assured too that there are possibly dozens, if not scores of Antiguans, who are suffering with Dengue – right now. Of course, they may or may not have been so diagnosed because they preferred to treat themselves with traditional herbal medicines or simply ignored what they would put down to a simple flu.
But while it may be OK to rely on the bush medicine, it is doing a disservice to the rest of the community when the Environmental Health Department and the Medical Division do not know that you may have Dengue. Being oblivious about how many persons are possibly infected with the disease, the control measures will surely miss the vital clues that will enable the national epidemiologist to trace contacts and literally track the virus around the country. Without that information, the Aedes aegypti Inspectors could end up fogging and inspecting St. John’s when the virus is really in circulation in either Bolans, Gray’s Farm or Otto’s.
On a final note, it is disturbing too that the Vector Control Unit is only now ordering larvicides for the treatment of standing fresh water that the Aedes aegypti mosquito favours.
Antigua’s sister island Barbuda remains unaffected at press time.
(Source: Antigua Sun)
