Dengue Season is Here

Along with the frequent rains will come mosquitoes, and the dengue season. The Ministry of Health and Wellness reports that up to the last week that ended on Saturday, there have been a total of over eight hundred dengue cases. And where you live might matter more when you hear where many of the cases originate. Interestingly, the Belize District no longer has the highest number of dengue cases. The Chief of Vector Control Operations, Kim Bautista, gave us the figures this evening.

 

Kim Bautista, Vector Control Chief, Operations, MoHW

“As a country, we have reported 865 dengue cases, 383 clinic lab confirmed cases. and 482 clinical confirmed cases. 75 percent of those cases come from the Orange Walk, Cayo and Toledo districts. The Toledo District, the majority of their cases, are from Orange, Cayo, Punta Gorda Town, and of course Bella Vista, which geographically is right on the boundary between the Stann Creek and Toledo Districts, but it is administrated by our Stann Creek staff, but for reporting purposes, it is still classified under the data going from the Toledo District. So the Toledo District accounts for 26 percent of our cases or 224. As of this past week, they account for the highest incidents of cases in country at this time. The Orange Walk District has 197 cases total for the year, 23%, followed by the Cayo District 26% of the total cases or 225. The largest urban epicenter believes district believes city and by extension the district used to account for majority of the dengue cases over recent years that trend has shifted quite a bit. At this same point where in terms of week 27, if you compare week 20 up to week 27 of last year versus week 27 of this year, there’s only a 5% increase.  At week 27, last year total, you were looking at 823, and this year you’re looking at 863. So there’s a 5% increase. However, at the week 18, which is at the end of April, since the end of April, we have been below that threshold. And we have been below the trend from last year. So following the projections that we’re seeing we were actually on trend to if we follow this pattern to actually end the year, lower with a lower number of cases than we had last year. So last year, as a country, we reported 3,054 cases, 1,370 laboratory confirmed cases and 1,370 clinical.”