Chief Environmental Health Officer says no major outbreaks of diseases in Dominica since Hurricane Maria

​Chief Environmental Health Officer Ferdinia Carbon says there have been no major outbreaks of diseases in Dominica since Hurricane Maria. She said since the storm, there were one or two suspected cases of gastroenteritis, but no outbreaks or major increase in cases.
 
She informed that the environmental health division has been working hard to prevent outbreaks, because a category 5 storm like Maria, would have impacted the health services to such an extent, that it would be very difficult to deal with any outbreaks.
 
She thanked many teams of workers and organizations, including water company, DOWASCO, who tried to restore pipe born water quickly after the hurricane, so that the system is operational, and persons can have potable water that they can drink, and not be at risk for communicable diseases.
 
She noted that the Cuban government donated rat bait to Dominica, which has been helpful in vector control, as it was distributed and spread over the entire island, to reduce the population of rodents, and persons are reporting that they have seen the rats dying.
 
She further stated that the environmental health division has also been undertaking treatments for mosquitos, since was a major increase in the adult population of the pest since Hurricane Maria. She advised that most of them are Culex mosquitos, and not the dreaded Aedes Egypti, which transmits a number of diseases.
 
She said, Culex can cause diseases but none of those mosquitos are present in Dominica; and meanwhile, a lot of basements have been treated, in order to reduce the source of the juvenile mosquitos.