Citizens urged to be vigilant, as dengue cases surge to over 3000 countrywide

With an overwhelming number of dengue cases recorded for 2024, the Ministry of Health is urging members of the general public to be vigilant and to take precautionary measures to safeguard themselves against the disease.
Guyana has recorded over 3000 dengue cases thus far, with Region Six (East Berbice -Corentyne) reporting an increase of 492 percent. This figure surpasses statistics recorded in 2023, which showed that some 2169 cases were detected from January to August, and up to that time, there were 239 patients hospitalised and 11 dengue-related deaths.
For 2024 so far, there have been two dengue-related deaths from the 3000 recorded cases, and Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony has said the MoH has ramped up the distribution of testing kits and bed nets countrywide in order to ensure adequate diagnostic capacity, and has also conducted fogging exercises.
Nevertheless, the MoH is continuing to see an upward trend in dengue, which is alarming. As a result, Dr. Anthony is encouraging citizens to do source reduction, otherwise known as the elimination of mosquito breeding sites, especially around homes, schools, and their surroundings.
“We need a partnership. It’s not just Government, it must be a combination of Government and people, because people need to keep their environments clean, and we need to avoid these stagnant pools, which we have a lot of. So, we have to have that partnership to reduce this burden,” Minister Dr Anthony has said.
Meanwhile, to properly treat persons with adverse symptoms of dengue, the Health Ministry is retraining all doctors countrywide and providing them with the latest information on treatment guidelines. According to Dr. Anthony, this is part of efforts to ensure that there are no further dengue-related deaths.
“With dengue cases, most people will be okay; but you have the occasional cases where people need to be hospitalized, and so once they come into the hospital, there is a whole protocol of what we’ll do in the hospital. And in fact, in anticipating this, we have done a whole manual and we have trained a lot of our doctors to be able to provide care for dengue patients,” Dr Anthony has explained.
It has been reported that Guyana had recorded 7,859 cases of dengue in 2023, while hospitalizations related to dengue had reached 1,182 individuals. Despite the country’s ability to control the number of dengue cases, the Ministry of Health is actively seeking further measures to minimise these occurrences.
Earlier in the year, Dr. Frank Anthony had told reporters that the MoH is currently in the process of acquiring a new vaccine for dengue.
“We are now trying to get a particular vaccine that will cover the four different types of dengue. As of right now, we are still exploring that option, because the vaccines are quite expensive,” Dr. Anthony has said.
The minister has also highlighted the introduction of a new technique, known as Abate, to prevent the spread of dengue fever. For context, Abate is a larvicide, which means it effectively targets and kills mosquito larvae, specifically those of the Aedes species, thereby helping to prevent the spread of dengue fever.
The MoH has been signalling its interest in dengue vaccines for years, and it was reported last year that the authority was awaiting official word from the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization, which is currently analysing data.
It was said at the time that this data would help the MoH finalise its decision to purchase vaccines for use in the National Dengue Control Programme.