-by Svetlana Marshall–

Citizens are being urged to keep their surroundings clean and take other precautionary measures to guard against the dengue fever as the country has recorded a number of dengue related deaths at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC).

Six children are among those who have died from the mosquito-borne virus in the past few weeks.

In an interview with News Source today, GPHC’s Director of Medical and Professional Services, Dr Navindranauth Rambarran said the hospital has been seeing daily admissions of dengue cases.

“Since the onset of the infection, we have been having at least two admissions on average a day or maybe 10 a week that require admission, those are the adult patients. And in paediatric, we have seen an upsurge, I can’t give you those numbers, but we have had, as the minister alluded, a number of deaths, six in total, that could be directly or indirectly attributed to dengue,” Dr Rambarran explained.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dengue fever is a viral infection caused by the dengue virus (DENV), and is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected mosquitoes.

Dr Rambarran told News Source that while the hospital recorded sporadic cases of dengue during the first six months of the year, it noticed a spike in the number of cases in July. A similar spike was recorded in other parts of the country.

However, according to him, the number of recorded cases is now on the decline.

“We are seeing reduced numbers throughout the hospital but we are noting that most of these patients that are seeing now, can be managed as outpatients. So, our infection rate seems to be trending down and our admission rate also seems to be trending down, at least in the paediatric children age group,” Dr Rambarran explained.

He said at the moment there is no paediatric patient hospitalized with dengue.

The GPHC Director of Medical and Professional Services was unable to provide the full stats on the number of cases recorded during the first six months of the year, and those recorded in July. He told News Source that the hospital is currently analyzing the data.

He said while the hospital is recording a drop in cases, it important for citizens to take the necessary measures to prevent the spread of the mosquito borne illness including the removal of stagnant water, and anyone with symptoms of dengue should visit the nearest health facility.

“If someone manifests symptoms, which are fever, pains, pains behind the eyes, vomiting sometimes, and generally not well, to seek medical attention, sooner rather than later. Some persons are coming very early, and we are able to detect and then intervene, and then monitor them to ensure the disease takes a less severe course,” he said.     

Together with the Ministry of Health, the GPHC has been taking a number of precautionary measures including fogging and treating stagnant water with larvicides.

GPHC has also established a committee to ensure that it effectively respond to the disease. “We did perceive that it would be a challenge on our resources, hence the committee was formed, and that committee’s TOR included them getting the resources, including testing resources, the testing kits, so we can do early interventions and prevent serious outcomes with the illness, they were tasked with lesioning with the ministry’s committee on dengue infection to also bring resources to both entities,” he explained.

 The WHO said since the start of 2023, dengue outbreaks of significant magnitude have been recorded in the WHO Region of the Americas, with close to three million suspected and confirmed cases of dengue reported thus far for 2023 – surpassing the 2.8 million cases of dengue registered for the entire year of 2022.

To date, Brazil, Peru and Bolivia have recorded the highest number of dengue cases.

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