Dengue On the Rise in Belize City
Dengue is on the rise in Belize City…that’s the news coming out of the Public Health Sector. The Central Health Region is reporting that since July there has been a spike in the number of cases of persons affected with dengue hemorrhagic fever, specifically in south side Belize City. As a result, the Vector Control Unit is embarking on pesticide spraying within the city to address the increase and to eradicate the disease transmitting mosquito.
Javier Alpuche, Senior Public Health Inspector
“We have intensified our vector control activities here in Belize City, but now we are intensifying even further to ensure that whatever progress that we’ve made is not lost but yet is maintained.”
Duane Moody
“How is this going to be done sir?”
Javier Alpuche
“As you can see behind us, we have a total of six vehicles which will be employed starting this evening to conduct spraying in the entire south side Belize City at first and then we move on to the north side Belize City.”
Duane Moody
“Now you said that there has been an increase in the amount of dengue cases. Could you tell us about when you started to see that spike and how many persons so far that have been affected by this disease?”
Javier Alpuche
Javier Alpuche
“The exact figure, I might not be able to share with you right now, but we started the spiking case in July; around mid-July to the end of July is when we noticed that the increase of cases was appearing and that’s when we came together and we started focusing our efforts in the areas where the cases were coming from. We have been doing the ULV spraying with the vehicles and machines that we have in Belize City; we have been doing larvae-ciding of all drains and stagnant water. We have been doing premises inspection in these areas as well as thermal spraying. We have been thermal spraying especially those areas where we have cases. The equipment here is assistance that we are receiving at this moment from Northern Region where they are assisting us with three machine and three vehicles so that we can have the six vehicles spraying this evening.”
Reporter
“Sir is this enough? Six vehicles for the entire Belize district? What is the schedule of spraying…every night, every other night?”
Javier Alpuche
“No it is never enough. If we have more vehicles, we’ll be able to cover the entire south side and north side Belize City simultaneously. But with six vehicles, we are focusing on the south side where we have the problem area and then we will be doing the north side.”
Reporter
“The schedule as well?”
Javier Alpuche
“In terms of the schedule, we conduct three consecutive sprays which will be this evening, tomorrow morning and tomorrow evening and then we’ll do a maintenance spray seven days after.”
