~ Two hospitalisations~
BELAIR--Three Belair residents, including a senior official on the Community Council's board were recently confirmed to have contracted dengue fever.
The Daily Herald understands that all three persons have been hospitalised, one in St. Maarten Medical Center's (SMMC's) Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Residents are reporting that there are two other Belair residents who recently returned to the island from abroad, who may have also contracted dengue while off island.
Residents are concerned about this development and the Community Council has been communicating with residents to monitor standing water in their yards and immediate surroundings.
However, Collective Prevention Services (CPS) Head Maria Henry said the figures do not indicate a spike in dengue cases.
In response to questions from this newspaper about the concerns of residents, Henry said CPS has not observed any spike in the received data regarding dengue especially when the figures are compared to CPS' data over the period of 2010, 2011 and thus far for this year.
Henry said there were 22 reported confirmed dengue cases for 2011 and there are three confirmed cases so far this year. Of the three confirmed cases in the Belair area, two are men and one woman between 55 and 70-years-old. She said in week one in 2010 there were three cases and three cases in week two. There were no cases in week one in 2011 and there were three cases in week two. There were no cases in week one in 2012, but three cases in week two.
Vice President of the Belair Community Council Jadira Veen told The Daily Herald on Tuesday that standing water on the roadways is one of the concerns of residents. She said the Council has also been in contact with health officials regarding residents' concerns and fogging for the area.
Henry said fogging is executed on behalf of government by Harrigan Exterminating and with the heavy intervals of rain the fogging activity has been "challenged."
"We started our fogging activity in November [2011 ed.] and was delayed by rain. Fogging knocks down the mosquito for 24 to 72 hours after which their multiplication still continues; the effective elimination of vectors is the destruction of the mosquito breeding places/sources," said Henry.
She said dengue is not transmitted from person to person. It is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Transmission can occur if an infected mosquito bites a healthy person. Depending on his/her immune system the person can contract Dengue Fever or Dengue Hemorraghic fever, which is more dangerous.
Henry said CPS continues to urge residents to check their surroundings (inside and outside) and to eliminate any and all mosquito breeding places/source particularly with the recent rainfalls.
"Tadpoles or guppies exist in these containers or in any clean water then the chances of mosquito breeding is less due to the fact that these animals eat the mosquito larvae," she said.
"All the mosquito needs to multiply is rain/clean stagnant water, and in the past months we have had a lot of rain and if we look around the island the manner in which the garbage is strewn along side of the road is a breeding source for the Aedes aegypti mosquito."
She said based on the previous bouts of rain, CPS in collaboration with the Department of Communications has requested and reminded residents to keep their surroundings free of mosquito breeding sources. "We continue to inform the public on the need to eliminate mosquito breeding places."
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