HAVANA, January 7 (Juan Carlos Linares, Cuba- Verdad / www.cubanet.org)
Public Health Ministry officials in Havana met behind closed doors here with
Communist Party officials to ask for their cooperation in combatting a dengue
epidemic.
An employee of the anti-mosquito spraying campaign said that one of the
objectives of the meetings is to alert the population without causing undue
alarm.
The man said the meetings have taken place in the areas where the disease
has affected the population, and in those at higher risk due to unsanitary
conditions.
"I think the government is putting in place a plan just in case the
epidemic gets out of control, as happened in the 80s," said the man.
He also said there is a rumor that several residents have died recently due
to the disease.
Public Health Ministry workers, who have been trying to clean up the
breeding grounds of the Aedes aegyptii mosquito for four years, say conditions
in Cuba are favorable to its proliferation, given its humid tropical climate and
poor sanitation.
"The infrequent land and aerial spraying, the lack of a reliable water
supply for the population, and the irregular pick up of garbage, which means
countless water-holding containers lie abandoned everywhere, are some of the
causes favoring the proliferation of the mosquito that transmits dengue in the
island," said one source.
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