Dang Gee

"SHCA confirms six dengue fever cases; Residents urged to take measures to continue to prevent mosquito breeding" - Thursday, 11 September 2008
St. Maarten – Sector Health Care Affairs (SHCA) Dengue Action Response Team (DART) confirmed on Thursday that there are six laboratory confirmed cases of dengue fever for the month of August which is more than what is usually reported. On average two cases are reported per month.

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Who knew there was a DART team for this disease.  Dengue hemorrhagic (bleeding) fever (DHF) comes from a virus spread by a mosquito that feeds during the day. Yum!Living on an island is bad enough. Having mosquitos is an annoyance for the most part, but they are here and getting deathly ill or dying is what this trek was about.

To prevent the spread of dengue fever, you must first prevent the breeding of its vector, the Aedes mosquito. The Aedes mosquito is easily identifiable by its distinctive black and white stripes on their body. It prefers to breed in clean, stagnant water easily found in our homes. You can get rid of the Aedes mosquito by frequently checking and removing stagnant water on your premises. But what about the stagnant water down the street? There is no mosquito control on Statia, or anywhere in the NA that I am aware of and public health is unheard of.

I heard someone talking about a striped mosquito the other day at school. Marvelous! Where's my island deodorant (insect spray)??