Dear Editor,

Our country is facing an epidemic of chikungunya spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Now, quite by coincidence, the British Broadcasting Corporation World Report on September 23, 2014 featured an Australian epidemiologist, Professor John McNeil, who is the chair of the Monash University Department of Social and Preventative Medicine at the Alfred Hospital.

Over the years, the programme he manages has become one of the major clinical and public research units in the US. His research activities have involved the application of epidemiological methods to problems in clinical medicine and public health. What relevance is this to Jamaica?

Professor McNeil has released mosquitoes with a dengue and chikungunya-blocking bacteria called Wolbachia, as part of a global project. Similar actions have already taken place in Brazil, Vietnam and Indonesia. The aim is for these mosquitoes to be able to pass the bacteria through generations of mosquitoes and eventually wipe out the insects’ ability to spread dengue or chikungunya.

It is estimated that 390 million people get dengue each year. The Wolbachia bacteria can block these mosquitoes from getting highly infectious diseases and passing it on to humans. Both dengue and chikungunya cause extreme joint pain and headaches. Though they are usually not fatal, there is no cure. Now if as is claimed by Dr. Fenton Ferguson preparation for these highly contagious diseases were started in 2012 how come present day activities seem so embarrassingly incompetent. Our medical profession is of a high standard our doctors and nurses deliver health care with professionalism. But this dengue and chikungunya outbreak is exposing us to shame and ridicule. We need to get involved with the release of these bacteria infected mosquitoes and encourage other Caribbean leaders to join us. Already the spread of the disease is impacting businesses, disrupting school attendance and causing untold suffering to those that have been infected. Thank God this isn’t the dreaded Ebola virus, we need to clean up our environment whatever the cost. Without being political one of the features of JLP rule has always been the stress on a clean country now we are seeing why it is important and nastiness can kill us.

Mark Clarke

Siloah, St Elizabeth

mark_clarke9@yahoo.com