Guyana confirms toddler, woman are first reported cases of chikungunya virus
From Caribbean360
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Wednesday May 28, 2014, CMC – Guyana has confirmed two cases of the chikungunya virus and health officials said they would step up their vector control exercise in the areas where the cases had been detected.
Health Minister Dr. Bheri Ramsaran said the two cases were of a toddler, and a woman from the Cumberland and Canefield, Canje areas in Region Six.
He said the two cases of the mosquito borne virus had been confirmed by the Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPA) after 30 samples had been sent there for testing.
“Since last year, we have been quietly getting our work done by increasing fogging activities, public health awareness programmes, spraying and at the same time education programmes to encourage citizens especially in densely populated areas to desist from degrading their environment which will create condition for breeding of mosquitoes.”
Ramsaran said this would help in the fight against all types of vector borne diseases, including, malaria and dengue.
“We have been following our data and we have been taking samples as is recommended by good public health practice and these samples are sent overseas for testing.”
Meanwhile, Ramsaran said all health facilities have readily available medication for the effective treatment of any vector borne disease and that the authorities were urging citizens to appropriately discard tyres, unwanted containers, and to keep their surroundings clean so as to eliminate breeding grounds for the vector.
The most common symptoms of Chikungunya are fever and joint pain. Other symptoms may include headache, muscle pain, joint swelling, or rash.
Chikungunya, a virus more commonly found in Africa and Asia and transmitted by the same daytime-biting aedes aegypti mosquito that causes the more deadly dengue fever, was first detected in the eastern Caribbean five months ago.
Since then, it has jumped from island to island, sending thousands of patients to the hospital with painful joints, pounding headaches and spiking fevers. Chikungunya is normally not deadly and symptoms begin to dissipate within a week.
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Despite Caribbean outbreak, little fear of mosquito-borne chikungunya virus in the Keys
By Ryan Mccarthy From KeysInfoNet
Despite its close proximity, Florida Keys Mosquito Control District Director Michael Doyle says it’s unlikely that an ongoing Caribbean outbreak of mosquito-borne virus chikungunya would impact the Keys.
“A disease like this, you have to have all the ingredients in the right conditions to have an epidemic,” he said.
That includes “lots of people outside most of the time; lots of infected people arriving and lots of adult mosquitoes flying around.”
Chikungunya has “spread like wildfire” in several small Caribbean nations, which are typically light on preventative mosquito control. Symptoms include fever and severe joint pain.
Doyle said chikungunya is transmitted to humans by infected Aedes aegypti and Asian tiger mosquitoes, both of which have been largely eradicated in the Keys. The Aedes aegypti caused minor outbreaks of dengue fever, which has symptoms similar to chikungunya, in Old Town Key West in 2009.
“Every once in a while we find one, but they’re certainly not widespread,” Doyle said of the Asian tiger. “On a lot of these Caribbean islands, they’re rampant.”
“We do a lot of preventative [mosquito control] here. We have higher risk because our temperatures are warm all the time and we have a lot of people coming in from all over the place, but it’s lower because of our mosquito control program and we don’t have the Asian Tiger mosquito,” he said.
Doyle added that “our normal mosquito program is better than the emergency response pretty much anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere.” It includes door-to-door inspections and aerial spraying not done elsewhere.
“We’re better able to handle it than anywhere,” he said.
Dengue fever hasn’t presented itself in the Keys since 2010, but it’s common in the Caribbean. In the Caribbean, chikungunya has spread rapidly.
“In December there was one case in the Caribbean. By this week there were 55,000 cases,” he said.
On May 22, the Palm Beach Post reported a fourth confirmed case of chikungunya in a 66-year-old man there who recently traveled to the Caribbean. The Associated Press has reported on other cases in Miami-Dade, Broward and Hillsborough counties.
IMAGE: This is an Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries dengue fever and chikungunya. KEYSINFONET
See related iNews Cayman story published May 27 2014 “Mosquito-borne illness Chikungunya spreads across Caribbean infecting over 55,000” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/mosquito-borne-illness-chikungunya-spreads-across-caribbean-infecting-over-55000/
