Wednesday 18 February 2009

Kier gets Dengue fever

This morning at the crack of dawn (why does Dawn deserve all these wise cracks?), I ventured into ABC's Sheridan Street studio to share the Dengue story.
Kier Shorey has always been supportive of independent bloggers like me, you only have to listen to his breakie show, to realise he has a bent for news that no one else dares to run.
Before I launched in and shared with his listeners the appalling Council and Queensland Health response back in December, Kier interviewed Amy Yorston, from Inverness Medical Innovations to talk about vector borne diseases. She stressed the dangerous environment created when more than one Dengue type was circulating, as it is in Cairns presently.
"When re-infection occurs, a person that has the virus, complications and outcomes can be very bad," Yorston said.
There are four types of dengue viruses that cause dengue fever: 1, 2, 3 and 4.
A person infected with one type of dengue will subsequently only be immune to that type, they will not be immune to other types of dengue and will, in fact, be at risk of developing severe symptoms if they contract another type of dengue.
"There is no early chance of a vaccine for Dengue, the only cure is to avoid getting bitten," Amy Yorston said.
At 4:30pm Wednesday afternoon, the total Dengue infection cases notified to Queensland Health, climbed to a staggering 379, since December 1st. These are made up of Type 2 and Type 3. There are 64 cases in Townsville.
Here's the local transmissions: Aloomba 3, Bayview Heights 6, Bungalow 31, Cairns North 102, Clifton Beach 10, Earlville 5, Edge Hill 9, Edmonton 1, Freshwater 1, Holloways Beach 2, Kewarra Beach 10, Machans Beach 23, Manoora 7, Parramatta Park 28, Smithfield 4, Trinity Beach 1, Westcourt 10, Whitfield 67, Yorkeys Knob 16.
I will continue with part 2 of the story in the next day.

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