(Trinidad Guardian) Rita Cabrera, 61, was so sick she could not even walk or dress herself. Cabrera, of Palmiste Street, Belmont, told the T&T Guardian on Tuesday she began experiencing pain in both knees. As the pain spread to every joint of her body, accompanied with fever, Cabrera went to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. “While there, the nurses told me there was a virus going around in the Belmont area and I had contracted it. They did not say it was the chikungunya virus specifically but I only got to learn about the virus being confirmed in the area via media reports,” she added.
Cabrera said at the hospital she was only given Panadol Ultra and Vitamin C salts. Feeling no better and wanting a second opinion, she decided to visit a private doctor, who prescribed Panadeine, another painkiller. “I have never felt like this in my life. I could not walk. I could not even put on my own clothes, neither let the bedsheets touch my skin. God hearing me, I never get so much pain,” she said. Cabrera recalled seeing scores of people at the hospital with similar symptoms. “I don’t understand why they at the hospital would want to hide things like this. I don’t know how come little T&T could get so many diseases like this chikungunya and Ebola,” she wondered.
Up to Thursday afternoon while a news team from the T&T Guardian was at Cabrera’s home, she said she was feeling the same way and was thinking of having a blood test done privately as none was done at the hospital. Asked if schools in the area should be shut down because of the presence of the virus in the area, Cabrera replied: “No. Education is important and I really don’t think there is need for the schools to be closed.
“What the authorities need to do is have the schools sprayed after classes on a continuous basis because I really don’t want to think if a child gets this virus, how she or he would be. It is so hard for me, so I could imagine how it would be for them.”
Cabrera also made a plea to have the area frequently sprayed and the environment cleaned of overgrown bush and stagnant drains. “Everyone must do their part and fight this,” she said.
