Local dengue fever cases climbing
(CNS): Following last week’s announcement of a case of locally transmitted dengue fever in a patient in East End with no travel history, public health officials have confirmed that, as of Thursday, there were six cases, three in patients that had been overseas and three who contracted it here. The Public Health Department has still not identified the specific districts where these patients live but Medical Officer of Health Dr Samuel Williams said they came from several districts.
Given the severity of the disease, the Mosquito Research and Control Unit has stepped up its work on eradicating the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits dengue and other serious illnesses. The MRCU has been focusing efforts in and around Savannah and Bodden Town as well as East End indicating that those districts are where the infections have occurred.
Category: Health, Medical Health
Time to dust off the Ebola tent we spent millions on. Where is that anyway?
Only going to keep getting worse until they get off their asses and fix the damn dump!
There’s been another story on this that’s rather over-stated the risks. This is a comment posted there –
‘I think it’s worth pointing out that there are four strains of dengue with only the hemorrhagic strain being ‘potentially deadly’. The other three are (and I speak from personal experience here) about on par with a bad dose of flu and most people recover within a few days. Infection also generates a natural immunity to that particularly strain.
‘The Health Ministry is wrong to say there’s no dengue vaccine. There is and it’s used in a number of countries, including Mexico. The problem is it’s only effective after someone has been infected.
‘I’m guessing from the low key reporting all the cases to date are the less dangerous dengue strains but I remember back in 2007 there was a fatality from hemorrhagic dengue on Grand Cayman. However, the victim had apparently not been infected locally.’
Anyone who has ever dived Micronesia is familiar with dengue because it’s endemic out there – dengue is nasty but the odds of it killing you are very, very low.
If you have to be infected for the treatment to work, its not a vaccine.
Excellent points that went unnoticed.
Why does the George Town hospital have to send suspected cases of Dengue Fever to Trinidad to be tested when someone going to Health City in East End can get the results by the next day? Can’t GTH have Health City do the tests for them also??
Anyone know the reason?
MRCU really needs to do more to inform the public about scheduling for spraying and fogging, and how to handle it. Not everyone is on facebook. Not everybody knows about turning their AC off during fogging (assuming they know it’s happening in their area). etc etc. Its impossible to get any info when you call or email MRCU. BETTER INFORMATION PLEASE. The public is not the enemy here, the mosquitoes are.
https://www.caymancompass.com/2019/10/16/mrcu-fogs-areas-to-combat-dengue-carrying-mosquitoes/
This article does not carry day by day scheduling.
This is done to surprise mosquitos.
MRCUs facebook page seems to be down since around 17 october, so not helpful at all.
MRCU claims that all precautions take place and members of public get warned in advanced about scheduled fogging. Than why people get caught unaware and unprotected in the thick clouds of chemicals thinking it a fire?
Is this some sort of Nazi style experiment on unwitting people and nature? Who is overseeing this Frankenstein experiment? Seems like genocide to me. Let them kill mosquitoes along with all things alive?
Ask people to choose between dengue and cancer/neurological damage. There got to be a safer way to control mosquitoes infestation.
A friend of mine got dengue in Mexico. One out of 15 people in her group. I saw what it does to a person. So I do not minimize the horror of dengue. Yet, more should be done to teach people how to avoid mosquitoes bites. Because cancer isn’t any easier on a person than dengue.
The MRCU, and by extension the CIG, have for a long time not taken the mosquito problem seriously. There now needs to be some acknowledgement of responsibility and a change in leadership so that competent individuals can tackle this most serious problem.
What a stupid comment. MRCU has ALWAYS taken mosquitoes seriously. This is why cows are no longer suffocated by the little nuisances and we no longer need to have smoke pots in our yards. You have no idea how tirelessly the department has worked to keep these pests under control.
The Cayman Islands have no where near the amount of dengue fever and other diseases carried by mosquitoes which other Caribbean countries are experiencing. Do research and find out when the Aedes Agypti mosquito was FIRST found on the Island. It was probably inevitable that it arrived here but the fact remains that for a very long time that breed of mosquito did not exist here…….thanks to MRCU.
NO I DO NOT WORK FOR THE DEPARTMENT EITHER.
If you do not work for the MRCU how would you know how tirelessly the department has worked to keep the mosquitoes under control?
https://caymannewsservice.com/2019/06/miller-problems-with-mcru/