Health Ministry Expands Team to Fight Dengue

The Ministry of Health and Wellness has taken steps to expand its vector control team to control an outbreak of dengue in Belize City. To stay ahead of any potential outbreaks, the Ministry of Health is stepping up its game, deploying more personnel across the country. Health Minister Kevin Bernard says the move was necessary, and so far, it’s paying off. The ministry is already seeing encouraging results from its ramped-up response.

 

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health and Wellness

“We have been on the ground every since they had an outbreak in Belize City, yes of course. Our people, our teams across the districts and city, we have on the ground spraying. In fact, in Belize City we had to hire additional spray men to go out and assist the vector team. In the districts we are putting out a program where every region, Orange Walk, Corozal, down south and in the west, there will be additional persons hired to go out and do it. This is something routine that we do around this time. But with the outbreak of dengue in the city we decided to ramp that up and take it up further and do so. We have seen a somewhat control for that issue, thankfully but we are doing our part as the ministry. Our vector team has been out at the same time, and we have been doing our education campaign, making sure people understand, talking. I think there are some scheduled talk shows so that people understand the effects of dengue and how to protect from these things.”