No dengue figures

Six and a half months into the new year and the Health Ministry is yet to release any figures on the number of reported dengue cases in TT.

For the past three weeks the Ministry has been contacted for figures, but they have been unavailable. Public Relations Officer at the Ministry, Keith Sancho, said the PR section moved to another area and the file with the figures was misplaced. He advised Newsday to call back. The file is yet to be found. Last year figures from the Ministry’s National Surveillance Unit showed the number of reported dengue cases  tripled for the period January to June when compared with 2001. There were 1,480 reported cases and 156 were lab confirmed (for January to June 15) and 483 reports (January to June 16, 2001). Fifty-six were confirmed after laboratory testing. The highest number of reports came from Victoria and St George East. The increase in the number of dengue cases was attributed to increased rainfall and the introduction of Type III dengue in 2001.

The principal vector of dengue is the  Aedes aegypti mosquito. The disease is sudden in onset with typically a high fever accompanied by severe headache, nausea, vomiting and rash. A complication of the disease is Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever, which can result in death. Symptoms are the same as dengue but with the addition of bleeding tendencies—bleeding from skin, gum, nostril, gastrointestinal tract (black stools, vomiting blood and injection site), blood in urine.