A senior health official here has confirmed that there is a decline in the number of cases of Chikungunya in Dominica.
Acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Charlotte Jeremy -Cuffy confirmed to GIS News recently that July’s figures show that there were over 3,500 reported cases and 141 confirmed cases. She attributes the decline in numbers to an extensive public awareness campaign.
“I believe it’s because of public awareness that with the symptoms being experienced, they self-diagnose, self-treat and do not report. I also think that with the increased public awareness and the spread of the illness people have become more responsible,” Dr. Jeremy-Cuffy said.
Despite the decline, she says, health officials will continue to take action to further reduce the spread of the virus which is transmitted by the Aedes Egypti mosquito.
“We continue with our education [campaign] because the symptoms of Ebola are similar to Chikungunya, Leptospirosis, Typhoid Fever, Malaria and other illnesses and so our education [campaign] will continue. The alert will be greater and there will be more work on the ground. We cannot stop,” she stated.
Dr. Jeremy-Cuffy has applauded health officials for their contribution to the declining numbers.
“I am proud of the [medical personnel] throughout Dominica: the Environmental Health Department, District Workers, Health Teams, Health Promotion Resource Unit…Everybody has worked so hard…” she said.
Who ever wrote this article made an error. I think you should have said 3,500 suspected cases where reported and a total of 141 were confirmed. Be careful how you write make sure you understand the facts especially when you are reporting some else words.
Dr. Jeremie ,Don’t be a Joke, if 98% of the population got the virus and you told us one can’t get it twice that does not mean chik is not increasing it means the old or chronic cases refuse to report chikungunya (chik).Sorry CHIK V IS INCREASING people are not reporting.
utter rubbish. U going to waste time and to health centres and be insulted. especially those nurses in casuaty. all they give is cocodamol and send u at your home.
welll people have that intheir bodies and get relapes who knows stuppes
The health clinics and hospital has done nothing for the effective treatment of this disease which is is easily and cheaply treated if caught early.
There is no Ebola pandemic only an Africa epidemic.
Ebola that raining now!
that is because mostly everybody get it already, its a virus you cant get it twice, virus remains in the body….
It is not the virus that remains in the body, it’s the antibody.
This is like a natural vaccination program, except one has to get sick before they can get that protection against future infection.
As I said before, what we are seeing now has nothing to do with anything people are doing differently. Because so many people have had he disease, there are fewer people who can re-transmit the disease.
In 5 years time, you will not even hear the word chikungunya.
Dr. Jeremy-Cuffy should applaud the PEOPLE for taking control of their own health issues with respect to Chikungunya . Local ‘bush-tea’ for the joint pain and aloe for the rash etc. This is the same Dr. Jeremy-Cuffy that we heard NOTHING from during the beginning to peak of this epidemic? Now that it’s on the decline, health ‘officials’ are crawling out from under their ‘mosquito nets’ singing the praises and trying to take credit? Nonsense…
Good news!
Let’s just keep being alert and vigilant. In spite of the thankless job that you all are doing in the health services, keep at it in the interest of the vulnerable in our midst.
She must be crazy.
People are simply taking their Chikungunya silently because it is a waste of time to report or go to the doctor.
The medication all doctors are prescribing is cocodamol so why waste time in a health center or pay a doctor fees for the known treatment.
The sad thing is many people are getting the relapse.
There are no bug mats on the island, no fumigation taking place, no concessions for mosquito control imported insecticides, yet they come bragging about Chikungunya on the decrease.
This incompetence will come to an end.
Not long!
And of course Peter J and John Paul
You will come in with a whole new crew of competent health officials. All incompetence will suddenly take a walk and when health officials talk to the nation it will no longer be propaganda.
Of course we have every right to question the scientific basis for the claim but I wish you people would find a way to heal your resentment and stop attacking public officers who are just trying to do their jobs. They happen to be almost permanent fixtures in the system by the way, so good luck to you all!
Bunch of hog wash!Your propaganda campaign might work on some I guess.Those two figures are not connected ,namely the reported cases and the confirmed cases!How did you determine that there was a drop in Chickungunya???
After more than half the population get chikungunya the rate of infection must decrease
AMEN,smh, AMEN!
Wow so the mosquitoes have stopped bonking their brains out and we are now much safer from Chikungunya! Sorry I seriously do not think this has anything to do with the mosquito. There has never been a dengue fever out break and yet it is supposed to be from the same mosquito?? Looking at the way it has spread and how fast it has spread through the Caribbean and now up into the mainland of the States it seems impossible that the little mosquito could be that active sexually!!!
! In Dominica the people who are living in areas who do not have mains water have not been affected by Chikungunya, you can check it out. It is far more likely to be some chemical used in the water supply as every island and main land uses chemicals in their water supply. Much more likely than athletic sexual mosquitoes!
The name peanut suits you well as it has been mentioned before why it is able to spread more rapidly than before. If a non infected mosquito bites someone who is then that mosquito too becomes infected and when it tries to bit someone who is health now person is now infected. Hence, the cycle repeats. However, with Dengue, a healthy mosquito biting someone who is will not be infected.
So what are people doing now that is different from what they did at the height of the epidemic?
One difference I know for a fact is that so many people have contracted the disease that there are many people who have built up immunity to the disease and therefore cannot retransmit the virus.
As time goes on fewer and fewer people will contract the disease and it will naturally burn itself out (for the most part). That explains why the same mosquito carries dengue, but the incidence of dengue was relatively low compared to chikungunya during that period.
It is almost the same thing that happened to the Arawaks when the Europeans arrived in the new world. A new pathogen appears and it wreaks havoc with the local population. A few years later and it becomes a big yawn because of the immunity that the population has built up.