Health knowledge made personal
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The Barbados government targeted their schools at the beginning of the 200-2011 academic year to protect the student population – much like what was done in Guadeloupe and Martinique. The plan was to prevent the school campuses from becoming collective focal points for the spread of Dengue. This was being done also within the context of a growing number of Dengue Cases, which was at 98 the last week of August, 147 by early September and 321 with 3 reported deaths by mid-October.
Out of the 321, at least 19 resulted in hospitalizations and 2 deaths. One was an 80-year-old Christ Church man. (Source: Daily Nation/ caribseek.com )
The first death came to light in a Barbados Q100.7FM newscast on Saturday, August 28. While expressing sympathy with the family of the deceased, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joy St. John reiterated her call to Barbadians to be careful about keeping open containers on their properties that could hold water and breed mosquitoes.
Dr. St. John’s pleas were best captured by the BBC Caribbean Report: “…We want to try to minimize breeding in schools because the likelihood of quick passage of the dengue is very high when the children are in school.” The CMO also indicated that plans were afoot to train non-teaching staff of the schools in Dengue prevention and control.
Not wanting to be misunderstood as to her previous declaration that Barbados was in epidemic mode, Dr. St. John reiterated her position on the status of Dengue at a media briefing on September 11 thus: ”I announced an outbreak, I think three weeks ago because at the time, based on our statistical examinations of trends and a close examination of previous figures, we are in an outbreak. So I don’t want persons to feel as though I am trying to tell them that we are not.”
Caribbean News Now also carried Dr. St. John’s admonishment to the Barbados public in their September 11 report entitled ‘Dengue fever epidemic hits Barbados‘. The CMO implored Barbadians to go around their houses and drain water-bearing containers they find and to avoid non-steroidals such as aspirin, motrin, ibuprofen, aleve, advil and the like because they are essentially blood thinners. One of the signs of Dengue is bleeding – bleeding under the skin, bleeding of the gums and through the nose, blood in the urine -conditions which should not be worsened by the use of inappropriate painkillers.
The latest figure of 321 was quoted as well by Barbados Minister of Health Donville Inniss on the morning of October 13 at the opening of a three-day Emergency Dengue Workshop convened jointly by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the Caribbean Epidemiological Centre (Carec) to address the record-making Dengue scenario in the English and French speaking Caribbean and Belize.
Record-making indeed. By comparison to the current numbers, it could be said that Barbados recorded a paltry 91 Dengue Cases in 2009. So the math.
On the regional front, 872 cases were recorded up to July 2010, compared to 242 last year.
The Dengue Workshop would have come up with common strategies for taking the fight to Dengue (something I will talk about at a later date). But as far as the Barbados Environmental Health Department was concerned, Inniss told the Chief Environmental Health Officers, Vector Control Programme Managers, entomologists, regional and country health administrators and senior health officials from Barbados that the Barbados EHD had implemented a three-month programme of premises inspections, complaint investigations, chemical and biological control to essentially decrease the mosquito population and to check the spread of Dengue in the country. (Source: NATIONNEWS.com )
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