Dengue Fever Is Now Endemic in Cuba
Pedro P Morejon
HAVANA TIMES – Let’s call her Silvia. Her name doesn’t mean anything. The important thing is that she has just lost the most precious thing to a human being: Life. She was a healthy, young, relatively happy woman. She was admitted into hospital with a high fever and headache. The next day, she was lifeless, dead. She leaves two young children behind, as well as a great blow to her family.
Silvia isn’t the only victim of dengue fever, this disease that has been ravaging our archipelago for many years. The same thing happened to Pablo, a 15-year-old teenager.
I was only 6 years old but I will never forget the famous outbreak of 1981. Official press, the only one to exist at the time, was forced to give the news a lot of media coverage. The number of people infected was so outrageous that they couldn’t hide it any longer. A little over 344,203 sick people were reported, with 10,312 critical or very critical cases, and 158 deaths. It was the first epidemic of hemorrhagic dengue fever in Cuba and the entire hemisphere.
Ever since then, a program popularly known as “The anti-mosquito campaign” was created, against the Aedes aegypti mosquito especially, which is the primary vector of the virus that causes dengue fever and other diseases. However, in spite of this, and Cuban health authorities’ efforts to try and wipe them out, dengue fever has become a permanent rival for our country’s public health system. Educational propaganda hasn’t helped, neither have constant fumigations or increased epidemiological controls, as well as other measures.
We aren’t the only ones suffering this scourge. Dengue fever affects many Latin American countries and there are even cases in the south of the US. However, I can only tell you what, in my humble opinion, is the main cause of this disease in our country: The awful hygiene and sanitary conditions we have.
Everybody knows that no matter how many campaigns and actions the State takes to wipe out the main vector of dengue fever, we will never be able to wipe out this plague entirely if we continue to have garbage dumps on every street corner. And now, with the summer rain we’ve had, there is a new outbreak, at least in my province, given the number of people who have fallen sick.
Unfortunately, it’s all part of the same web. A disastrous economy that doesn’t allow us to maintain the infrastructure we need to keep cities and towns free of garbage. It’s shameful that communal services companies depend on donations from city halls or local governments from other countries, or that an ox-driven cart is the main or only way to collect waste in many towns in the 21st century.
It’s also true that Cubans, in spite of being a people characterized by cleanliness in personal hygiene when compared to other countries, don’t have any discipline or a culture of cleanliness outside the home and throw cans, paper or any other piece of garbage onto the ground as if it were the most natural thing to do.
While these conditions don’t change, dengue fever will be here for a good while, and there will continue to be Silvias and Pablitos with their tragic endings.
Stephen, you have completely misconstrued my observations. Firstly, Winnipeg Manitoba has a well known plague of mosquitoes which has led to strenuous endeavors to deal with them – hence trucks loaded with insecticide touring the streets and spraying the sources of larvae and the trees. The sources of those larvae are not within the residences of the citizens in Winnipeg or in Cuba. Mosquitoes lay their eggs where there is moisture for the larvae.
Yes, we all know that Canada is a wealthy country and that the citizens can afford screens – against the mosquitoes that you either humorously or in ignorance describe as “benign influence” – i know few Canadians who so regard them! Our home like those of the majority of Cubans, is not “in the countryside” but in a city. Numerically there are more mosquitoes in Canada than the “scourge” you describe in Cuba. The difference is that Dengue and other mosquito borne diseases have already arrived in Cuba -whereas to date, the problem has yet to become serious in Canada.
As I actually witness the methods being practiced in Cuba, I am qualified to speak of them – are you? The mistake is that the Cuban teams of operatives are busy with the fruitless task of spraying the interiors of dry homes, rather than the breeding grounds of water – which is in evidence in many backyards where the pigs, poultry, horses and poor dogs reside and the rubbish littering the streets. So actually it is the difference between. Does that now explain to you the validity of my comments?
This is The Subject That I Have Been Waiting For. (Bananas OR Garlic) We all understand Not to Eat one of these & Lots of the Other, Don,t We to fight against insects. When Smelling, Looking & Studying Cuba a Foreign Guest Can Only think of Failure for anything relating to insect control & Community Hygiene: Most if Not All of Cuban Community,s are Failing Because The People Have Give up & There Government Really Dose Not Give A Shit unless you have foreign Money. Where is That World Class Health Care System I Have Hear about all the Time, OH Yes You SOLD That to Other Nations & again you Forgot about your own People. Cuba Has a Problem that it will Not Take Good Positive advice from other Nations, until you Stop thinking you are the Superior Political Race or What Ever: Get Your Head Around It, you are going to either Die off or as Many Have already Run away to another Country. Excuse My Blunt wording There is just No Time when Honesty in a Nation of Filth Needs to Come Out of its Bull Shit & Join the Rest of the World. Our Now Generation Youth have there Heads up the internet Clouds Thinking of another World & How to Get there & Who is going to get them the Hell out of this infected Cuban Filth. Many Foreigners Believed our Government Had Some kind of simple Control Above the Filth & Hygiene of there Nation. Moron & Puerto Padre Take Top spots for infections & Hygiene higher Risk possibly,s & Filth of Cuban Community,s. Yes I Live In Cuba & I inform of The High Medical Risks Of Cuba. Medical Insurance Company,s Need informing of our Hiding The Truth & our Truth is Cuba is its Own Worst Enemy. No One To Blame but our Selves.
Cholera is likewise endemic throughout the island!
Garbage and “aguas negros” – everywhere!
As well as the overtaxed septic and sewer systems which constantly break down, flooding the streets with “aguas negros”.
Carlyle,
“Cuba should send a few operatives to visit Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada which has ideal conditions for mosquitoes to find out how to deal with the scourge”
It’s not necessary for Cuba to send operatives to visit Canada. Because of our wealthy nation the majority of homes are built with screen doors, screen windows, screen gazebos, screening out mosquitoes unlike the impoverished homes of most Cubans living in the country side. Comparing mosquitoes with their benign influence in Canada with mosquitoes in Cuba and their deadly scourge in Cuba is hardly a valid comparison . . . like comparing snowballs and pineapples for taste.
When I was in Cuba, i was struck by the sight of Santiago’s huge, unsightly, and malodorous garbage dump.
I have loved visiting Cuba but have been shocked at the pure garbage in the ocean! I have seen everything including dead chickens! I commented many times that people must learn this is not a garbage dump! No way would I ever go in there to swim, even if I were at a fancy resort (I was not!)
Please learn the dangers of trash, land and sea! ??U Cuba!
The Cuban regime will protest that they have employed trained operatives to visit and inspect all residences and that they have gassed the interiors of those residences regularly – with the dates of visits posted on the inside of the entrance door. That is correct.
But as I have pointed out to some of those involved, it is not the interior of homes that are the breeding grounds – those are the garbage that litters the streets and the awful insanitary urban back yards with hogs in concrete block hovels, dogs tied up to drums, chickens running around loose (with standing water supplies) and the odd horse.
Cuba should send a few operatives to visit Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada which has ideal conditions for mosquitoes to find out how to deal with the scourge.