THE health ministry yesterday issued a warning about malaria, and local doctors have been placed on alert after four people in Kingston and St Catherine contracted the disease.

The ministry said it has launched “a thorough and intensive” investigation to determine whether the disease was “imported or contracted locally”.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Horace Dalley has instructed that a number of health centres in the two parishes open their doors over the weekend to facilitate people who may experience malaria-like symptoms.

Malaria is transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito. The symptoms include fever, flu-like symptoms with chills, headaches, muscle ache and tiredness. The disease is not contagious, but if left untreated may lead to severe complications and, eventually, death.

Jamaicans who experience any of these symptoms may visit the Maxfield Park, Hagley Park and Comprehensive Health centres in Kingston, or the St Jago and Sydenham Health centres in Spanish Town, which will all be opened over the weekend, according to the ministry.

In addition, this morning health workers are expected to begin inspections in the communities where the four people live, to determine the origins of the disease. They will be going door-to-door in the Kingston 13 area and sections of Spanish Town, conducting surveys to identify cases.

Mosquito breeding sites will also be eliminated and specific areas fogged with insecticide.

The health minister is urging residents to cooperate with the health workers as they carry out inspections and vector control activities.

“The Ministry of Health is taking these cases very seriously as Jamaica eradicated endemic malaria over 50 years ago, and has only experienced a number of imported cases through visitors from countries with malaria,” the ministry said in a statement to the press.

But yesterday, opposition spokesman on health Dr Kenneth Baugh pointed out that the issue of the disease recurring in Jamaica had been raised in Parliament shortly after a number of Haitian refugees began washing up on Jamaica’s shores.

“It is now suspected that individuals [Haitians] may have escaped attention and mingled with other communities, thereby leading to local infections,” Baugh said in a news release.

“It is also possible that travellers infected abroad could have brought home the disease.”

He urged residents to “cooperate fully with the guidelines being issued by the Ministry of Health to take control of the situation before it becomes endemic once more or reaches epidemic proportions”.

Added Baugh: “Malaria is a problem worldwide especially in tropical countries. We have to be vigilant and proactive in controlling this serious threat.”

Between 350-500 million cases of malaria are recorded globally each year, and the disease kills one million people annually, most of them children from sub-Saharan Africa.