MONTEGO BAY, St James – Health Minister Horace Dalley says at least one case of malaria has been reported in Clarendon, the first outside of the Kingston Metropolitan Region (KMR) – Kingston and St Andrew, Portmore and Spanish Town.

“I think the case is from Lionel Town,” Dalley told the Observer yesterday, after he signed a $32.82-million contract at the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay for the replacement of all the hospital windows.

“We took the samples but the Anopheles mosquito is always present in Vere, and that is why extensive fogging is taking place (there),” he said. “What has to be done is that we must kill the adult mosquito.”

Chief medical officer at the May Pen Hospital Dr Winston Dawes confirmed that there was one confirmed case of malaria in Clarendon, while another suspected case was awaiting lab results.

The minister earlier declared that while there were suspected cases outside the declared danger zone – Bull Bay in St Andrew to Free Town in Clarendon – where the disease has already affected more than 40 people, no case had been detected in western Jamaica. “. And we hope and pray that it will remain that way,” the minister said yesterday. “We have not found any case in Savanna-la-Mar, we have not found any case in Cornwall Regional and we have not found any case in Mandeville or in Port Antonio,” said Dalley.

In the meanwhile, he said that of the more than 40 cases of malaria reported, 19 have been successfully treated and sent home, and that he anticipated that those who were still in hospital would be released during the course of this weekend.

In allaying fears of an impending pandemic, Dalley said malaria, spread by the female Anopheles mosquito, was not endemic to Jamaica, having been eradicated in the early 1960s. “We eradicated malaria in 1961 and in 1965 we were certified by the World Health Organisation and the Pan American Health Organisation as a malaria-free country,” said the minister.

He noted, however, that from time to time there have been cases of malaria imported into the island by persons who have travelled abroad to countries where the disease is present.

The Ministry of Health, which reported 45 cases of malaria up to yesterday, said it would continue to work assiduously at ensuring prompt treatment of the outstanding cases.

The ministry said to date, 85 per cent of the total affected areas have been fogged, while a number of mosquito breeding sites have been identified and treated or destroyed.

Health Minister Dalley said he would be providing the nation with a full update on the malaria outbreak at a press conference this morning.

Yesterday’s contract signing at the CRH was the fourth for repairs/improvement to the 365-bed hospital.

The others, he said, included a contract for repairing the roof and the upgrading of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) from two to seven beds, as well as the procurement of three elevators that were to be available by early January.

Hospital CEO Everton Anderson said the hospital elevators are so bad now that at times a technician has to be on standby at the 10-storey hospital.

– Additional reporting by Taneisha Lewis