COPS FEAR DENGUE

POLICE officers attached to La Brea Police Station, say they are working in fear for their lives since they believe an outbreak of the dreaded and potentially fatal mosquito-borne disease Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever has hit the station.

This after a corporal was confirmed to have contracted the disease while three other officers are being tested, after showing symptoms of the disease. Frightened officers reported to Newsday yesterday that the fear of contracting dengue was the latest on the list of woes at that police station, which according to the officers, is one of the most dilapidated and run-down stations in the country. Sources told Newsday that for almost a week nowes, Cpl Gillis Small has been warded at the Augustus Long Hospital, after tests confirmed that he had contracted the disease. Last week Thursday, a team of officials from the Ministry of Health (Insect Vector Control Department), while on routine check and spraying duties in the La Brea area, told officers they had identified several mosquitoes lurking in and around the police station as being of the Aedes aegypti species known to be the carriers of this potentially deadly disease. Infection with the dengue virus produces a spectrum of clinical illnesses ranging from a non-specific viral syndrome to severe and fatal haemorrhagic fever.

Yesterday, a police officer admitted there was a general sense of fear among his colleagues when they reported for duty since their health and very lives were at risk. Sources told Newsday that 13 officers are now at risk of contracting dengue at the police station, not to mention members of the general public who visit the station to lodge reports. “Our lives are in danger because dengue fever is something that could kill you, if it is not treated in time. And given the situation at the public hospitals, if you don’t have money to go in a private nursing home, you are very much dead like a dog,” an officer told Newsday, as he referred to the shortage of critical pharmaceutical drugs at the San Fernando General Hospital. The policeman added dejectedly, “as I sit here talking to you, I am praying that the Lord spare my life, as I have no other way to protect myself from the elements.” The suspected dengue outbreak is the latest misfortune which police officers have had to endure at the station.

The physical conditions at the rural police branch is considered one of the most dilapidated and deteriorating in the country, with leaking roofs, regular invasions from mosquitoes and other insects, broken toilets and inadequate change-room facilities, being the general features of this police station. Public Relations Officer (PRO) at the Ministry of Health, Keith Sancho, told Newsday yesterday that the Ministry would carry out routine insecticide spraying at the police station in an effort to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Newsday was unable to reach Mr Sancho later on in the day, in an effort to get him to answer several follow-up questions.