The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Ministry of Health and Wellness is currently not considering bringing dengue vaccines into the country, according to the head of the ministry’s surveillance unit who said officials are waiting for more data to ensure the vaccines’ safety. 

Dr Felicia Balfour Greenslade, who leads the ministry’s national communicable disease surveillance unit, said there are two vaccines available that offers protection against the four dengue serotypes.

However, she said the problem is “the work of those vaccines has been done primarily in countries where dengue is endemic”.

“So we don’t have enough information right now to say how a population where the disease is not an endemic what that would look like in terms of exposures and risk associated so I don’t think, in my opinion, I don’t think we’re entertaining bringing that to The Bahamas just yet,” Dr Greenslade said during a Zoom meeting Friday.

 “I think we need more information first just to be sure of its safety in our population.”

 Her comments came after former Health Minister Dr Duane Sands called on the government to bring in dengue vaccines for people who want it.

 “There is a vaccine available,” he said while appearing as a guest on Rodney Moncur’s Freedom March talk show last week. “It is commercially available. Depending on which vaccine you choose, it can either be used only in young people, people younger than the age of 16. Or another version can be used in young people and adults.”

 “It can be purchased by the government and I think we should be proactive, get a supply and make it available to people that want it.”

 According to the latest data provided by the Ministry of Health, the country now has 70 confirmed cases.

 Dr Greenslade said most people diagnosed with dengue fever have type three of the virus. This form of the disease can cause severe illness for people who previously had the first two serotypes of virus.

 “We had dengue in country before in 2011 and 2014. At those times, we had two of the known serotypes of dengue in country – serotype one and serotype two,” Dr Greenslade said. 

 “Currently in this situation we’re at right now, we’re seeing serotype three predominating. The challenge with that is most persons would assume if you had dengue of any serotype, your body is given a degree of protection against the others.

“That’s not the case. With dengue, if you’re exposed to a particular serotype and then you are exposed to a different serotype, it actually puts you at higher risk for severe illness so we have a population that’s already been exposed to serotypes one and two and you have to also bear in mind, persons who are infected with dengue, about 40 to 80 percent of them don’t even have symptoms.”

 As it relates to treatment, senior nursing officer Andrea Linden said there is no specific treatment for dengue fever. She also advised people not to self-medicate. 

 “That means antibiotics will not help,” she said, “so don’t go to the doctor and request antibiotics or get something out of the counter. We need you to come so we can treat you and manage you as your symptoms present. There is no straight treatment for this illness.

 “We treat the symptoms because remember now, you can have the headache the pain behind your eyes, you can have abdominal pain but whatever you come with, we treat that symptom. 

 “So, if you have fever, we’ll give you something like Panadol or Tylenol like that. We don’t want you to take aspirins or Motrin.” 

 Dengue fever causes severe flu-like illness and sometimes a potentially lethal complication called dengue haemorrhagic fever.

 Other symptoms can include headache, muscle and joint pains and rash.