The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) is warning countries in the region to brace for a severe outbreak of the dengue virus.
According to the agency, the current outbreak of dengue in Jamaica has raised the level of concern in other Caribbean islands.
On Wednesday, CARPHA head, James Hospedales, advised Caribbean countries to implement enhanced measures to reduce mosquito breeding and prevent the spread of the disease.
“We all need to clean up our surroundings. The two most important things to manage mosquito populations in our Caribbean countries are to manage water storage drums and tanks, and properly dispose of used vehicle tyres to prevent mosquitoes breeding,” Hospedales stated.
“We have been anticipating an increase in dengue as we have not had a major situation in 10 years, so enhance precautions are really important and what is really important to prevent mosquitoes from breeding and biting is a total community effort.
You are your neighbours’ keeper — if you have a block with 20 houses and 19 households heed the message and cover their drums and clean up the environment and discard old tyres properly and one household does not, it spoils it for everybody else because the mosquitoes breeding in that one house will fly over to everybody else nearby and help to spread dengue if it comes into the community,” Hospedales said.
CARPHA said disease modelling predicts that another regional outbreak of dengue may occur in the near future.
“Dengue is a flu-like illness that affects infants, young children and adults. Symptoms typically begin four to 10 days after infection, and include a high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash.
This illness can evolve into severe dengue, characterised by potentially deadly complications, such as internal haemorrhaging, intense and continuous abdominal pain or tenderness and persistent vomiting.
In some cases, dengue may be severe and cause death,” CARPHA explained.
