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The Editor speaks: Dengue fever is the Caribbean curse and Zika is back in Cuba

Colin Wilson

The Cayman Islands government have issued a press release we have published today warning Cayman Islands’ residents to be aware of the symptoms of dengue as a precaution following increased activity in the region.

Please make sure you read the story headlined “Dengue prevention and awareness urged” and take note of all the symptoms outlined in it.

This follows the article we ran yesterday (Jan 9) titled “Jamaica: Health Ministry making progress in containing dengue”.

The article states “The Ministry of Health has confirmed that 123 dengue case reports were received for December, surpassing the outbreak threshold of 96 cases”.

See; http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/jamaica-health-ministry-making-progress-in-containing-dengue/

Even more alarming is another story we also ran yesterday titled “Cuba’s hidden Zika outbreak”.

The article claims “Cuba stopped providing Zika updates to the PAHO during January 2017. “

It the goes on to say:
“To uncover lingering Zika outbreaks in the Americas, these researchers investigated travel-associated Zika cases diagnosed in the United States and Europe to identify transmission signatures that were not captured by local reporting.
By sequencing the Zika virus from infected travelers, this study shows that the Cuban outbreak seems to have been caused by international visitors from nearby countries during 2016.
The Zika virus then persisted at low levels, before peaking late 2017.
To calculate their data, the study team looked at the travel logs of 184 people who had contracted Zika while traveling and found that 95 percent had visited Cuba. “

See: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/cubas-hidden-zika-outbreak/

Now the government have stopped the Oxitec trials there is nothing in place as a substitute, or if there is nothing has been announced.

The jamaican government say they have Dengue under control although a nurse I spoke to in Jamaica doesn’t exactly have the same view.

And with Cuba not even acknowledging Zika is back there I foresee problems ahead.

If you believe Dengue is a relatively new disease from mosquitos think again.

From: History of Dengue

“Slaves in the West Indies who contracted dengue were said to have the posture and gait of a dandy, and the disease was known as “Dandy Fever”.

“The first record of a case of probable dengue fever is in a Chinese medical encyclopedia from the Jin Dynasty (265–420 AD) which referred to a “water poison” associated with flying insects. The first recognized Dengue epidemics occurred almost simultaneously in Asia, Africa, and North America in the 1780s, shortly after the identification and naming of the disease in 1779. The first confirmed case report dates from 1789 and is by Benjamin Rush, who coined the term “breakbone fever” because of the symptoms of myalgia and arthralgia.

“The viral etiology and the transmission by mosquitoes were only deciphered in the 20th century. The socioeconomic impact of World War II resulted in increased spread globally (see also Dengue epidemiology). Nowadays, about 2.5 billion people, or 40% of the world’s population, live in areas where there is a risk of dengue transmission . Dengue spread to more than 100 countries in Asia, the Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and the Caribbean.”

SOURCE: http://www.denguevirusnet.com/history-of-dengue.html

There is no cure for Dengue nor Zika.

I haven’t mentioned chikungunya…… no cure for that either.

What a curse. And a very, very long time one.

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