(Trinidad Express) Trinidad is in the middle of a dengue outbreak, Dr Rai Ragbir, the chairman of a special purpose State-board involved in the Government’s fight against dengue, has said.
Ragbir, chairman of the Community Improvement Services Limited, made the statement yesterday before meeting with Local Government Minister Chandresh Sharma to discuss plans to combat dengue across the country.
“The number of people infected with the dengue virus is enough to constitute an outbreak,” he said.
“An endemic means we have it always, and an outbreak by definition means we have more cases. So if you want to use the terminology outbreak then yes we do have an outbreak,” Ragbir said.
“And it (dengue) will affect each one of our lives and especially for our children. So we have to clean up our environment first,” he said.
Close to 2,000 people have been diagnosed with dengue in the country for the year, Sharma said.
Sharma however shied away from describing the situation as an outbreak.
“There are less than 2,000 infections this year, when we look at the statistics of last year and the year before it seems that we are going to have a lot less than 4,000 (infections). Last year was 4,000, but of course we have a lot more work to do,” he said.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Foreign Affairs and Communications Minister Dr Surujrattan Rambachan also shied away from the “outbreak” classification.
“We have always had dengue in the country, whether you call it an outbreak or it is dengue. The fact is that dengue is something every government should pay particular attention to and we are taking a very proactive approach in terms of dealing with the situation especially with children,” Rambachan said.
A press release from the Office of the Prime Minister on Tuesday announcing that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had contracted dengue stated that several government agencies had embarked on a programme “to combat the dengue outbreak on several fronts”.
Minister Rambachan, in a telephone interview yesterday, said that Persad-Bissessar was “making good progress” at her private residence at Phillipine, San Fernando.
Sharma said all efforts are being made to prevent any other death as a result of dengue.
Two Thursdays ago eight-year-old schoolgirl Asia Archibald died as a result of a fatal strain of dengue fever.
“We are still doing a lot of work and we are concerned about every case that surfaces and the dengue having attacked our Prime Minister has created a higher level of awareness. We are working very, very sharp in terms of minimising any further dengue cases,” Sharma said.
“And we are very committed to make sure there are no deaths arising out of the dengue and we feel we will be able to achieve that,” he said.
Sharma added, “health facilities are working around the clock to run tests on persons who believe they have contracted dengue”.
Sharma called on all citizens to do their part to fight dengue.
“We will be starting minor contracts to give to small business people to clean up the additional waterways as we seek to have an aggressive clean up across the country,” he noted.
“We are asking all truck owners, all contractors to make available their trucks for two days and we will clean up the entire country”.
