Friday 6 March 2009

Dengue recorded in Mareeba

The fast-spreading mosquito-borne Dengue virus, has now made it's way to the Atherton Tableland's town of Mareeba, 100 kms west of Cairns.

A Type 3 Dengue infection was confirmed today by Queensland Health.

The southern suburb of White Rock has been added to the list of communities around Cairns that have recorded a Dengue infection.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As the Councillor responsible for White Rock, I care passionately about the welfare of people in this area, and I am as ‘mad as hell’ about this. There are two possibilities:
1. Tropical Health was denied the resources they needed to vigorously address this outbreak.
2. Tropical Health had access to vast resources and has failed through their own mismanagement.

I am not saying Council is without blame (most notably in relation to rubbish collection), but it is important people know the overall response to the Dengue epidemic has been directed by Tropical Health. Failing to put enough response staff on the ground two months ago is the best example of ‘false economy’ that I have seen in a long time!

Regards,

Cr. Rob Pyne.

Anonymous said...

Something puzzles me about the dengue outbreak. I don't pretend any expertise in tropical epidiomology and there may well be a simple explanation (in which case I'd like to hear it).

Apparently all four strains of dengue have been found in this outbreak in the Cairns region. Presumably that means four separate infections arrived here more or less at the same time?

It is at all common for a single epidemic to feature all four strains? I'd have thought the probability of that occuring by chance alone is quite low.