Bdos: Dengue alert

Two hundred and thirty-six suspected of cases of dengue fever have been reported so far for this year, and 112 of these have been confirmed.

This is according to Robert Broomes, Principal Environmental Health Officer with Warrens Polyclinic and Lana McQuilkin, Area Co-ordinator Vector Control at Warrens Polyclinic, who conducted a community education lecture at the Bush Hall Resource Centre about the potentially deadly disease on Saturday.

“Dengue fever is a serious disease,” McQuilkin warned the audience, therefore the polyclinic had embarked on a community outreach programme to promote awareness and prevention. “Our Barbadian public – unless something happens directly to them and affects them or their family – do not take it seriously,” she added. McQuilkin said that the disease could be controlled, “As long as we can find the sources where the aedes aegypti mosquito is breeding, I think that we can actually reduce our number of dengue cases.”