Nov

11

No dengue fever in St. Kitts?

Filed Under Caribbean Living, In the News, Quotable | 

yesterday in class we had an announcement to protect ourselves from mosquitoes, ensure there wasn’t any standing water near our houses and report any and all fevers to administration for monitoring. when searching for the news article reporting dengue fever in St. Kitts, i came across the following:

The Ministry of Health has sought to correct a story that appeared in the front page of the Wednesday, 5 Nov., issue of the Sun St. Kitts/Nevis.

In the story, the SUN incorrectly stated that “there could be two cases of dengue fever (better known as yellow fever) in St. Kitts.”

There have been no reported cases of yellow fever in decades, according to the Ministry of Health.

On 1 Nov., an advisory pertaining to a development in the dengue fever situation and according to the ministry, there has been an increase in the number of individuals presenting to clinicians with symptoms and signs of dengue fever. A number of confirmatory tests have been dispatched to the CAREC lab.

The ongoing rainfall and confirmed reports of dengue fever cases in neighbouring islands increase the likelihood of increased dengue activity locally, the ministry further explained.

~ from SUN St. Kitts & Nevis

UPDATE: CDC dengue outbreak warning in tropical and subtropical regions. dengue and yellow are both hemorrhagic Flavivirus fevers transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. so i guess that’s why they might be mistaken for the same thing.

here are the current CDC guidelines for travel to St. Kitts and Nevis.

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photo: taken from the point in St. Kitts where you can see the Atlantic ocean on the left and the Caribbean sea on the right.

Comments

6 Comments so far

  1. Mayhem on November 11, 2008 4:23 pm

    The SUN might also want to look into the fact that Dengue Fever and Yellow Fever are two different diseases. At least, that’s what the microbiologists have been teaching us.

  2. BCWB on November 11, 2008 6:21 pm

    Hmmm….where does one get a shot for either of these?? Quite the delema… wear long pants and shirts or shorts and t-shirts with extra bug spray?? hmmmm??? : ) : P

  3. RAEB on November 11, 2008 9:26 pm

    Yeah, I think the point of their self-correction is that they screwed up and marked yellow fever as synonymous with dengue, which is not true. Yellow fever’s right now a relic of poor South America and Africa, whereas dengue is still pretty much everywhere - including the US.

    Guadalajara was also hit recently with a dengue outbreak recently - and a public warning.

    Looks like it’s a dengue outbreak year.

    Dengue hurts like hell (kadinga pepo = (bone breaking) pain caused by evil spirits) but you usually survive.

    Yellow fever can kill - not to mention you’re yellow.

    But I’m sure some reader of the blog here will know that. For the rest - mosquitoes aren’t as cute and cuddly as they look!

  4. jhawke on November 11, 2008 9:36 pm

    what he said. : )

  5. mgk on November 12, 2008 2:04 am

    Seems like most of it is coming from st martin. dengue has been reported there for some time. our micro prof warned us for a while now…:)

  6. Mayhem on November 13, 2008 2:49 am

    Um…ok yeah, I’m gonna blame sleep deprivation. It’s totally not because I’m a bonehead or anything.

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