{"id":2051,"date":"2019-01-07T19:52:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T19:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2051"},"modified":"2019-01-07T19:52:14","modified_gmt":"2019-01-07T19:52:14","slug":"war-on-dengue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=2051","title":{"rendered":"WAR ON DENGUE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barrington Flemming<\/strong> – Staff Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the island now\nexperiencing a Dengue Fever outbreak, the St. James Health Department will step\nup its multi-million-dollar heightened vector control programme in the parish\ntoday, to stave off any possible case of Dengue Fever when it engages the\nservice of the National Works Agency to clean a number of problematic drains across\nthe parish.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem areas include sections of Railway Lane, sections\nof the Charles Gordon Market, Catherine Hall and Rosemount Gardens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The drain-cleaning programme will complement the\nthree-month-long campaign which started on Saturday and ends on March 22, 2019,\nwith visits to schools for the destruction of mosquito breeding sites and\nfogging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lennox Wallace, Chief Public Health Inspector for the parish\nof St. James, told the Western Mirror\nin an interview that this morning\u2019s meeting with the NWA is another aspect of\nthe multi-agency campaign to keep the parish safe from Dengue Fever, as St.\nJames is yet to register a case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFollowing Minister Tufton\u2019s announcement on Thursday that\nthere was a Dengue Fever outbreak and a subsequent meeting with us, we made\ncontact with the Ministry of Education to have schools open their windows and\ndoors (starting Saturday and Sunday) so we can do fogging in the evening, as we\nwould have carried out inspection and destruction of mosquito breeding sites\nearlier in the day\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Wallace said the health department will employ\nadditional personnel to boost its efforts to take its programme to every\ncommunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are going to be employing an additional 40 temporary\nworkers, some of whom would have been trained to deal with the  Zik V \nlast year,  to join other workers\nas our programme is going to be seven days a \nweek; there will be no letting up,\u201d Wallace explained. \u201cWe have the\nresources and will have the personnel to keep the programme going efficiently\nfor the stipulated period.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding to concerns expressed by the public about the\nineffectiveness of temporary workers in the past, Wallace said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe workers will be properly identified and supervised by\nthe Public Health Inspector and physical inspections of premises will be done\nof homes and other areas and treatment of water sources will also be carried\nout. We will be looking at cans and feeding pans and bowls for animals or pets,\ndrums for storage of water. So, we are not going to rely on what people are\nsaying,\u201d he disclosed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, he says the team will also visit Westgate\nHills, Granville and Lilliput and two other areas where tyre garages are\nprevalent to carry out treatment, remove old tyres and transport them to the\ndump site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 WESTMORELAND<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Steve Morris Chief Public Health Inspector for\nWestmoreland, which has been highlighted as one of the parishes with highest\nsuspected cases of Dengue Fever, says the challenge is great in the parish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 2017 we had 36 suspected cases of Dengue Fever, but in\n2018, we have a sharp increase moving to 117 suspected cases with four\nconfirmed cases. So, our vector control programme, which should have ended on\nDecember 28, will be extended to the next 12 weeks. So, we will be employing an\nadditional 25 persons to ramp up our programme.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Morris says \u201cmost of the suspected cases have been in\nthe Savanna-la-Mar, Little London, Negril areas, but we also have to\nconcentrate on areas where we have limited water supplies where people store\nwater in drums and buckets and so on, so we will visit those communities as\nwell and carry out prevention and treatment activities as this is one of our\nbiggest challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the problem areas include Belmont, Darliston, Bethel\nTown, Grange Hill, Jerusalem Mountain and many areas in Eastern Westmoreland,\nwhere many persons are forced to store water. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Morris says while they will be engaging the National\nSolid Waste Management Authority and the NWA, residents will have to play their\npart in cleaning up the areas affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will be working assiduously to reduce the number of\nadult mosquitoes and to destroy the breeding sites, so we need the cooperation\nof residents in this process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, Christopher Tufton, Minister of Health,\nannounced that the island was on Dengue Fever outbreak with 830 reported cases,\n123 reported in December, which surpasses the 96-case threshold for a Dengue\nFever epidemic to be declared. Minister Tufton also announced that 250 million\ndollars was provided to boost vector control. He also announced that health\ncentres, including the Type Five Health Centre in St. James would be opened for\nextended hours. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barrington Flemming – Staff Reporter With the island now experiencing a Dengue Fever outbreak, the St. James Health Department will step up its multi-million-dollar heightened vector control programme in the parish today, to stave off any possible case of Dengue Fever when it engages the service of the National Works Agency to clean a number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1053,603,1055,1051,1052,1054,1056,1050,31,30],"class_list":["post-2051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-breeding-sites","tag-chief-public-health-inspector","tag-christopher-tufton","tag-dengue-fever","tag-dengue-fever-outbreak","tag-fogging","tag-minister-of-health","tag-mosquitoes","tag-st-james","tag-western-jamaica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2053,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions\/2053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}