The island’s Chief Medical Officer, (CMO), Dr. David Johnson, is warning of a reemergence of Dengue fever in Dominica.
He said two persons are presently receiving treatment at the Princess Magaret Hospital and there have been 20 recorded cases of the disease from March to October.
“We had been seeing a number of Dengue cases in Dominica and to date I can confirm that we have seen 20 cases from March 9th to October 16th 2012,” Dr. Johnson revealed.
He stated that despite the two admissions in hospital, there has been no severe form of the disease for the year. “And we don’t have any deaths as a result,” he said.
Dr. Johnson is urging Dominicans to take precautionary measures to avoid the breeding of mosquitoes, especially Ades Egypti the main carrier of Dengue.
He said health officials are being proactive and are “are working with the vector unit to educate the public as the things they need to do to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes.”
In August 2011 there were 15 confirmed cases of Dengue in Dominica mainly around Roseau and the Mahaut area.
Symptoms of Dengue Fever include high fever, rash, severe headaches, back pain, eye pain, muscles and joint pain.
The time between the bite of a mosquito carrying dengue virus and the start of the symptoms averages 4 to 6 days, with a range of 3 to 14 days.
An infected person cannot spread the infection to other persons but can be a source of the dengue virus for mosquitoes for about 6 days
Persons with symptoms should report to their Health Center, doctor or to the Princess Margaret Hospital.
dont make that come back
all i can say “lord help us with this dengue”ok
Roseau full of mosquitoes. alas. God help us!
But I see water gathering in gutters alongside of the road, and small larvae moving in them. What can we do about that? Can we put salt on them or something like that to kill them off?
Those people must have gone to the hospital in an ambulance because when I had it, I could hardly get up for a week. Hopefully I am immune at this point.
They need to get some mosquito fish and put them in these stagnant canals. The fogging is toxic.
“Dengue on a comeback”. Who said Dengue had gone somewhere? Dengue never left. Obviously the virus has been in the environment all the time. It just required an infected mosquito to bite someone and once that person become infective to trigger a transmission cycle.
The health authorities should increase their public health education/communication strategies. Too much time is wasted on public as well as private radios stations on issues many of them which are of no benefit to the public. Much of this air time can be used for community health education.
The first problem in Dominica is that we have not dealt with the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, the vector for Dengue. Once a female mosquito becomes infected it remains so for life so the Dengue virus can remain viable until the mosquito dies.
History shows that the number of Dengue case emerge and increase during and after the rainy season because the amount of breeding foci left behind after the rains increases dramatically. The increase in the mosquito population means that that chances of someone being bitten by an infected mosquito increases hence the increases in cases around that time. Something that complicates the transmission of Dengue is the fact that it mat be transmitted through trans-ovarian passage if the vector is the Aedes Albopictus-this means that the mosquito can pass on the infection through its eggs to its off-spprings. So the young mosquito does not have to bite an infective person to become infected. It is already born infected.To date that mosquito although it has been suspected of being present in Dominica, it is yet to be positively identified.
A second problem with mosquito control in Dominica is that the authorities operate only in crisis mode. You only hear about fogging when there is an outbreak of Dengue. To be effective, mosquito control must be intensive and continuous- not ad-hoc. I speak as one having experience in n Vector Control work in the past and to my knowledge many of the vector control officers seem to be more concerned with the number of homes they do per day rather than the quality of inspections they performed.As a matter of fact, they sometimes rushed the inspections to have a quick finish and then be free to lime about.
A third problem is that mosquito control in Dominica has now been outsourced by government to a private company. These companies are motivated not by service but by profit. Lets face it, government pay them monthly like they do their employees.If that company gets a private job to do, wouldn’t they give it priority(for the instantaneous financial reward)over the public sector component of their function?
A fourth problem in Dominica where mosquito control is concerned is that there are mosquito control regulations but they are not being enforced.
Here are my recommendations for Mosquito control and reduction of Dengue in Dominica:
1)Government should re-assume the function of mosquito control.
2)Government should have a fleet of mosquito control vehicles with vehicle mounted fogging/ULV machines on them, instead of having one vehicle for the entire island. Imagine a Dengue outbreak and you have to cover the whole island with one vehicle.Each health district should be equipped with on such vehicle.
3)They should also throw away those old/obsolete handheld foggers and obtain more modern equipment.
4) Fogging should be a planned and continuous year round activity rather than a crisis/emergency related activity.
5) Government should set up a mosquito research laboratory/unit where they can do insecticide resistance testing,identify mosquito species and test new mosquito control technologies.
6)The authorities should re-assess the insecticides used in mosquito control to evaluate their effectiveness.We have stuck to Malathion as our primary insecticide for too long. Who knows whether the mosquitoes may have developed or may be developing resistance to this insecticide?
7)The mosquito control regulations must be enforced.
Do people get paid to write these long things as political commentary? Or pure idleness?
Appears as if someone just graduated from adult literacy program. Keep it short!
Anonymous i think its pure idleness, i pass it straight, i will never waste my time to read this, i wonder if Admin did
The problem with some of you folks is that you will never get anywhere because you all don’t read. If it was some nonesensical post all of you who call it idleness would be bashing your mouths in it. But something that is meant to be educational is called political commentary. On the contrary, you are just pure too lazy to read what you should know instead of some of the nonesense that most of you will spend time commenting on.All some of you do is comment on what other people write but you all will write nothing original or constructive.
very informative
whillllllllllllllllllle is they any way that we can stop the eggs from flying away when they are in breath spot also when they have hatched already and how can we tell apart which mosquito is carrying dengue
Princess- the mosquito has what is called a life cycle- eggs (develop to) larvae (develop to),pupae(develop to) adult. Eggs don’t fly only adult mosquitoes fly. We can stop the eggs from becoming adults by breaking the chain of the life cycle. For example if we destroy the larvae they cannot develop to adults. Now mosquitoes must develop in water so if we deprive them of water they cannot develop.
The mosquito species responsible for transmitting Dengue is the Aedes Aegypti and Aedes Albopictus.You cannot tell if a mosquito is carrying the Dengue. However only female mosquitoes carry dengue and if you get bitten by a mosquito it certainly is a female mosquito. Males don’t bite people because they do not need blood like the females do.
can we get to kno wat are the symptoms again please?
ADMIN: The symptoms were published with the story.
Go back and read the article again.