ANOTHER nine confirmed cases of malaria since February 1, and the detection of a new strain linked to contacts with Central America, has raised new concerns about the programme of eradication of the disease.

Information Minister Donald Buchanan told journalists attending yesterday’s post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House that Minister of Health Horace Dalley, informed the Cabinet that the number of malaria cases has now risen to 287 from the 278 announced by the Ministry of Health at the start of the month.

He said that of that figure, 268 were in Kingston and St Andrew, 12 in St Catherine, one in Clarendon three in St Thomas and three in St Elizabeth.

But Buchanan said that the three cases identified in St Elizabeth were peculiar, because they were found to be a different strain of malaria from that found in the other areas.

“All the indications are that the St Elizabeth situation is a direct result of persons returning from Central America, a fisherman and his friend, who is a Honduran, were approached by the police. The friend escaped, but the fisherman was caught, and when he was taken in, it was discovered that he had been affected by the particular parasite,” Buchanan said.

He said that there was a very extensive programme of vector control taking place along the St Elizabeth coast stretching to Whitehouse, Westmoreland, as a result of the detection of the three cases in St Elizabeth.

Both the regional adviser to the Southern Regional Health Authority Dr Michael Coombs, and the JLP’s candidate/caretaker for South West St Elizabeth, Dr Christopher Tufton, last week raised the issue of high risk nationalities from Central America entering the island, illegally, through the fishing beaches raising the possibility of a proliferation of malaria along the south coast.

However, the strain now detected in St Elizabeth is less deadly than that which was found in the Corporate Area last year.

The cases of malaria which have been identified in the Corporate Area and its environs were recognised as being that spread by the plasmodium falciparum parasite which is transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquitoes.

Plasmodium falciparum, one of four species of parasite that commonly cause malaria infection in humans, is the most dangerous of the malaria infections as it has the highest rates of complications and mortality. In addition, it accounts for 80 per cent of all human malarial infections and 90 per cent of the deaths. It is more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa than in other regions of the world.

The strain found in St Elizabeth has been identified as that carried by the parasite plasmodium vivax, which is the most frequent and widely distributed cause of benign, but recurring (tertian) malaria. It is less virulent than plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of the four, and seldom fatal.

Plasmodium vivax is passed on by the female Anopheles mosquito, since it is the only gender that bites.