Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr. David Johnson said dengue fever is no longer a serious threat to Dominica. He said cases of infection are on the decline with only three cases recorded for January 2020. He recalled that five cases were recorded in October 2019 even though no patients died after admission into intensive care. Statistics for cases were on the rise since September 2019.
“As we speak we have only seen three cases of dengue for the month of January so far,” he revealed. “The evidence that we have seems to indicate that we are out of the woods in terms of the dengue outbreak.”
Dr. Johnson revealed that most of the affected patients were children aged 1 to 15 years. He said this is also the case in other Caribbean countries where dengue fever has been reported.
At the height of the outbreak, about 200 patients were hospitalized between July to December 2019. Twelve of the cases were severe and the patients were admitted into the Intensive Care Unit of the Princess Margaret Hospital.
Dengue fever is spread by the bites of the Aedes aegypti mosquito which also transmits Zika and Chikungunya fevers. There are no specific treatments for these diseases. Symptoms include high fever, headache, vomiting, joint and muscle pains, and skin rash among others. Patients begin to show symptoms four to 10 days after infection.
The vector mosquito is present throughout the Caribbean and health authorities have set up a campaign to wipe them out. They destroy the breeding sites of these mosquitoes to reduce their spread and infectious bites.
Health organizations advise people to protect themselves from mosquito bites by wearing long clothing, treating clothes with permethrin or other repellants, sleeping under mosquito-treated nets, destroying stagnant water in abandoned tyres and drums around the home.
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