SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has warned that environmental diseases that could lead to death are the biggest health risk to residents of hurricane-affected parishes, and urged public health workers to remain vigilant while managing the risks over the next six weeks to two months.

Five parishes in western Jamaica — Trelawny, St James, Hanover, Westmoreland, and St Elizabeth — were hard hit by Category 5 Hurricane Melissa which left widespread destruction, lack of electricity, limited pipe water and communications during its rampage on October 28.

“Today, in the few weeks after the storm, the biggest health risk that the people of Westmoreland face, and the other parishes, is environmental,” Tufton told vector control workers and public health inspectors during a meeting at The Hotel Commingle in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, on Saturday.

“In the immediate aftermath mosquitoes were not a threat, rats weren’t a threat, dead animals weren’t so much a threat… Today, the real risk facing Jamaicans in the zone of Hurricane Melissa is water-borne diseases [and] food-related diseases,” stated Tufton.

“So what we anticipate — and you are professionals, you are trained for this — you have to carry your burden and carry the burden of everybody else that comes with it,” Tufton said, adding that the health authorities have seen a few suspected cases water-borne illnesses, such as leptospirosis, but those are yet to be confirmed, as well as food-borne illnesses like gastroenteritis.

“These are all conditions that, in extreme cases, can lead to death; in not so extreme cases, hospitalisation; and in the least case, some form of treatment and [patients then get] sent home,” added the minister.

Against that background, Tufton said the health workers in the field should consider themselves the most important professionals in the aftermath of the storm.

“We have to go into the fields with all the challenges that we face and be bold, be brave, and be willing to take on the issues,” he urged the team, and said that without the successful efforts of these workers “more people are going to end up in [the] accident and emergency departments… with diarrhoea, leptospirosis, dengue, or any other thing like that”.

Acknowledging that there are still blocked roads, he encouraged the workers to take water boots with them into the field.

He also suggested the use of town criers as an effective way of getting messages out in the communities, given that the lack of electricity could prevent people from hearing advertisements placed on radio by the ministry.

Regarding the lack of telecommunication services in some areas, the minister encouraged managers to have daily meetings with the workers in the field.

Following an update from chief public health inspector for the parish Steve Morris, Tufton said he was happy to know that the health department in the parish has hand-held foggers and is also receiving human resource assistance from other health regions. He said hoteliers have been contacted in Negril and are willing to provide accommodation.

Additionally, the University of Technology, Jamaica has offered to assist the parish with manpower from graduands.

Following the meeting, Morris told the
Jamaica Observer that the department currently has 14 hand-held stream foggers, four motor vehicles, and another five that are rented.

Morris further noted that while the vector control programmes began across communities last week, the initiative will be intensified on Monday, November 17, 2025.

Across Jamaica, the ministry currently has a total of about 3,000 health workers who are either community health aids, vector control workers or public health inspectors.