The Community Needs to Help Eliminate Mosquito Breeding Sites
Across the Central American region, there have been many deaths since the outbreak was detected and thousands more infected. As the numbers in Belize continue to climb, Doctor Largaespada Beer says that the public needs to do more. Among the many best practices to avoid complications is eliminating mosquito breeding sites by cleaning your yards and accessing health facilities if you start exhibiting any dengue-related symptoms.
Dr. Natalia Largaespada Beer, Maternal & Child Health Technical Advisor, MOH
“It’s a community responsibility, it is an individual responsibility, it is a family responsibility. The Ministry of Health alone is not sufficient. So we have the regional managers working closely with the town councils. The communities that have a higher number of cases that are being reported, the Vector Control Unit is working with the community. It is a lot of work, but we need to do it. And it is a habit that we haven’t been good at—keeping the yards clean and especially free from breathing sites for mosquitoes because that’s the only way that we can fight dengue and especially avoid these deaths.”
Natalia Largaespada Beer
Reporter
“Talk to us also about the importance of persons accessing health facilities when they find themselves developing symptoms similar to that of a person infected.”
Dr. Natalia Largaespada Beer
“The ministry has done several TV shows and radio programme shows and the message is the same. We need to ensure that we access the services. Today we had a virtual technical meeting and one of the lessons learned from huge countries in the Central American sub-region is that every person with fever should consider themselves having dengue and try to seek services as early as possible. And one of the most frightening findings also is that before we used to think that day-four and day-five after the infection is when they would be at higher risk to get complicated and have a shock syndrome. But now they are finding that even the first day of infection, one can present with shock syndrome which is not good for anyone.”
