Guyana is experiencing a worrying spike in dengue cases and there are at least four deaths that are being investigatd as being dengue fever related.
Advisor to the Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy said since last year, there has been a considerable rise in cases. It is suspected that the cases may have reached into their hundreds.
Dengue, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), is a viral infection caused by the dengue virus (DENV), transmitted to humans through the bite of infected mosquitoes.
In his address at the Voluntary External Evaluation of IHR Core Capacities Forum at the Guyana Marriott Hotel, Dr Ramsammy said Guyana is not alone in the fight to combat Dengue as other countries in the Region are also experiencing an increase in cases.
“One of the health challenges we face in the Americas today is the continued increase in cases of dengue. Dengue has been increasing, not just in the last few months, this region has seen a phenomenal rise in dengue in recent times. Globally, from 2000 to now has increase by more than a 1000%, from around 500,000 recorded cases annually to now more than 5 million. And even with the limited reports we are gathering in 2023, we are going to exceed that 5.2 million easily this year,” Dr Ramsammy said.
He said here in Guyana, the Ministry of Health is closely monitoring the situation with testing laboratories established across the country. Persons are being asked to keep their environment clean and take other precautionary measures.
“Its vector controlled, mosquito borne disease, and we need to ensure that we keep our environment clean. We have been doing fogging but you know the problems we get. We do it, then we are damned, if we don’t do it, then we are damned. Because we can’t go 12 o’clock a night to fog, you got to fog when the mosquitoes are out, which happen to be the early evening hours but some people don’t want that. But we are doing it, we have completed Georgetown in March-April,” the Health Advisor said.
Last week, 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. Additionally, 1,302 deaths were reported in the Region.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login