Nasseem Ackbarally
PORT-LOUIS, Mar 2 2006 (IPS) – A few months ago, the average Mauritian might have looked blank if asked what chikungunya was. Now, they re probably all too familiar with the term.
Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne disease that has swept through islands in the south-western Indian Ocean over recent months. While seldom fatal, the virus has reportedly been linked to the deaths of 77 people on Réunion. In a Mar. 1 update, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that about 157,000 people on the island might have contracted the disease.
Now, the infection rate in Mauritius is climbing by the day with health ministry officials putting the number of confirmed cases at 1,322, Thursday. The first case of chikungunya was reported in December last year.
Mauritius outbreak is concentrated in Mahebourg, a village in the south of the island, from where the disease spread north to Triolet, another village 60 km away.
Huddled on their hospital beds, patients in a Mahebourg hospital visited by IPS recently were miserably doing battle with chikungunya, a Swahili word meaning stooped walk . Sufferers develop a high temperature, headaches and pains in the ankle and wrist joints which lead to the bent posture characteristic of the disease.
I am suffering from vomiting; my whole body is aching and scratching. I do not know what is happening to me, shouted a young woman, Karuna Lalchand.
In the men s ward, Vijay Bhunsee his throat sore was breathing with great difficulty. Several nurses in the same hospital had also been infected.
Many of our colleagues are ill and they are staying at home. There is not enough staff to cater for the almost 400 people calling at the hospital with fever daily, a nurse at the facility said.
Doctors and nurses are also overloaded at SSRN Hospital in the north, and at Queen Victoria Hospital at Quatre-Bornes in the centre of the island; no more beds are available for chikungunya patients at these institutions. In the current, apprehensive climate, even those who don t have the virus are convinced they do, consulting beleaguered medical staff at the least symptom.
Cases of chikungunya are typically reported in the rainy season, currently underway in Mauritius, as it is then that water accumulates in the stagnant pools that mosquitoes need to reproduce.
In Triolet, a survey of marshy land near the village tells the story of why chikungunya is spreading with such rapidity. Plastic containers and bags, garbage and old tyres dot the landscape, all receptacles for rainwater which also accumulates on the roofs of houses.
We have never drained the water (from roofs), admits Ramesh Pandit, a resident of Triolet.
A national campaign to eradicate mosquito breeding grounds has swung into action, however, along the lines of an initiative in the 1970s to root out malaria.
Across Mauritius, citizens are assisting local authority workers to clean rivers and abandoned lands, and collect refuse. Old dumping grounds which had been shut down are now open again, to receive waste.
Hundreds of people are also spraying insecticides in risky areas, while foggers machines that disperse insecticides over a larger area than sprayers have been deployed.
The media, particularly radio stations, have been active in discussing chikungunya. Local councillors in Montagne-Longue in northern Mauritius, Saint Julien d Hotman in the east and many other villages also spent the past weekend distributing leaflets on the virus to inform people about it and what could be done to prevent its spread.
One of the councillors, Ramesh Maudhoo, said both local authorities and citizens were to blame for the extent of the outbreak.
The former does not provide enough (waste disposal) services and the latter transforms abandoned lands, roads and river banks into dumping grounds, he noted.
Elderly people from affected areas are migrating to other parts of the island so as not to expose themselves to the risk of being bitten by mosquitoes.
There has also been a sharp increase in sales for all manner of mosquito repellents creams and electronic vaporisers, for instance as well as of mosquito nets. One company reported that it had sold eight times more of these products in February than during the whole of the last year s summer season, which lasts for about six months.
Pharmacies have been awash with people in search of medicines to make them immune to chikungunya. However, no treatments have been developed to prevent the disease or cure people of it. Those who contract the virus are simply dosed with medicines to reduce their fever, or treat pain.
Despite concerns about the disease, the WHO has declined to issue a travel restriction for Mauritius, which has a sizable tourist industry.