Madrid/Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez pronounced this tuesday some words as feared as they were expected. “We are going to work on this epidemic as we worked on Covid-19,” he said at the meeting of Health experts that analyzed the situation created since viruses associated with arboviruses began to spread on the Island. The street has assumed for weeks that the expansion is uncontrolled and hoped that the authorities would do the same, although the fear of hearing the name of the coronavirus that so recently put the planet in check is worrying.
The authorities spoke yesterday about this “nonspecific febrile syndrome,” as it is known in Medicine as a condition characterized by the presence of high fever and commonly associated with a wide variety of diseases such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and many others. According to the data offered by Public Health at the meeting, it is the second consecutive week that the number of infections has decreased, but the cumulative number is beginning to scare.
Dr. José Raúl de Armas Fernández said that there are eight provinces in which the number is beginning to decrease – Havana, Matanzas, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Ciego de Ávila, Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo –, from which it can be inferred that in the rest it is at least stable, if not increased. Sancti Spiritus, says a text published this Wednesday in the diary Escambraymaintains the highest rate of suspects. The data on dengue, the most dangerous of the arboviruses circulating on the Island this year, was very non-specific.
Sancti Spíritus, states a text published this Wednesday in the newspaper Escambray, maintains the highest rate of suspects
Authorities have been reluctant to give an absolute figure, but data delivered to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) allow us to verify that a total of 9,602 people have already been infected, compared to the 6,519 that totaled on October 23. This means that the incidence amounts to 87.79 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, when three weeks ago it was 59.6 per 100,000.
The data are from suspected and confirmed cases – in week 46 of data –, although they represent a small part of what actually exists on the Island, since a good part of the population is reluctant to go to health centers despite the insistence of the authorities. Three weeks ago, when this newspaper reviewed PAHO data on dengue, Cuba had reported 71 cases of severe dengue, but today there are already 115: 62% more in just 21 days. In addition, deaths are recorded: three in total, unchanged from mid-October.
De Armas Fernández did give more precise numbers of chikungunya, and it is not the first time. Last week, the national director of Epidemiology, Francisco Durán, placed it at 20,062, while yesterday the accumulated figure had increased to 21,681, of them more than 20,000 with clinical suspicion of the disease, in 14 provinces, 93 municipalities, and 151 Health areas. Matanzas, Havana, Camagüey, Cienfuegos, Artemisa, and Villa Clara account for almost all the cases, 98.5% of those diagnosed.
Regarding oropouche, experts stated that there have been no confirmed or suspected cases since last September 26.
“The fundamental objective of our system is to achieve the admission of all patients who have febrile syndrome. This admission can be in the home or it can be due to the criteria that are already approved,” said Yagen Pomares Pérez, general director of Primary Care and doctor of Sciences.
Pomares said that a new protocol has been approved for this situation based on the experiences of the pandemic, in which it is essential to “achieve the admission of patients,” and that begins with isolation in the home, which, he admitted, is complicated.
In addition, he indicated that it is necessary for health teams to continue monitoring the patient. To do this, and in the midst of a collapse of personnel and human resources in the Health sector, “fifth year” medical students have been mobilized, who already have all the skills to be able to do so. The experience has already been tested, as this newspaper reported last month and the official confirmed this Tuesday, in Matanzas, the first province to suffer the serious epidemic.
The experts recalled that there are demographic groups that must be hospitalized in all cases, such as children under two years of age, pregnant women and older adults.
The experts recalled that there are demographic groups that must be hospitalized in all cases, such as children under two years of age, pregnant women and older adults. People who suffer from any disease that can be aggravated by a virus must be added to them, from hypertensive patients to diabetics, including any other condition that causes comorbidities. But the authorities face the great challenge of the distrust of citizens, who fear finding themselves in an institution in which there are deficiencies of all kinds, including sanitation, and surrounded by others affected.
“We all know that the main concern that our population has today is adulticidal treatment, fumigation,” added Madelaine Rivera Sánchez, national director of Surveillance and Vector Control. The official alleged yesterday that “it has not been possible to reach all the places, as we have been accustomed to during all the years in which we have had epidemic outbreaks,” although it is not the first year that fuel, supplies and personnel problems have complicated – or made impossible – the task.
Although Rivera promised that they will try to reach urban areas or where intervention is requested, “there are some provinces where it has not gone well because equipment has been left on the ground.” This disease, he said, “has had a very rapid transmission speed due to the presence of the mosquito; and against the vector we have to continue carrying out the main actions to be able, in the shortest time possible, to solve this problem that is affecting the entire population.”
