After months of little or no publicity about the occurrence of dengue fever, Hoy newspaper headlines the preoccupation of doctors in the Cibao Valley regarding the illness. Some hospitals, such as the Luis Morillo King in La Vega, have as many as three afflicted children in each bed. In Santiago, a meeting of the National Commission for the Prevention and Control of Dengue met with doctors from the region who asked the authorities for more resources to fight the disease. The director of the Jose Maria Cabral y Baez Regional University’s medical facility told the Commission that his emergency unit receives as many as 150 patients from outlying clinics and hospitals. According to some of the doctors present, the vector of the disease, the mosquito, has become immune to many of the more popular insecticides. A mosquito called the “Asian Tiger” is reportedly a new vector for the illness and is said to be more dangerous than the well known “Aedes Aegypti”. As of last week there were 717 reported cases of dengue in Santiago, 78 of which were classified as the typical or classic type, 15 were hemorrhagic and 22 showed classical symptoms but with hemorrhagic manifestations. Two dengue-related deaths have been reported in Santiago. Dr. Manuel Tejada Bueno from the Public Health Ministry said there were about 4,000 cases reported as “probable” dengue and that of these about 1,000 have been proven to truly be dengue fever.
Dengue fever is endemic in the Caribbean. Epidemiologists such as Amiro Perez Mera, the physician credited with eradicating polio and malaria in the DR in the 80s, points to the need for the public health authorities to get a hold of the problem. Physicians have complained that the government has not carried out the educational campaigns that need to be routinely conducted every year, so that the population can recognize dengue and get medical treatment early. Increased awareness would help people eliminate free-standing clean water in which dengue mosquitoes breed. Santiago, Duarte (Moca), and La Vega are the most affected provinces in the Cibao Valley. See http://dr1.com/travel/prepare/health.shtml#18