By Rory Rostant Friday, September 12 2008

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Minister Amery Browne....

Dr Amery Browne, Social Development Minister, is recovering from a bout of dengue which he contracted a few weeks ago.

Asked about his condition in a telephone interview on Wednesday, Browne said he was not going to discuss his personal medical matters in public.

“I am not in a position to discuss my personal medical matters in the media,” he said. Asked to confirm whether he had indeed tested positive for dengue, Browne repeated his initial comment: “I am not going to discuss any personal medical matters in public.”

When asked how he was coping with the dengue, Browne gave no response.

“Have a good day,” he said when pressed on the issue.

Dengue is a mosquito-borne infection that causes a severe flu-like illness, and sometimes a potentially lethal complication called dengue haemorrhagic fever. Browne does not have this virulent strain of the virus.

Browne, who delivered the feature address at “Caribbean Conference on Horizontal Co-operation in Social Protection” at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain, yesterday appeared subdued and spoke in measured tones. He looked visibly tired but has kept up with his work schedule. Immediately after his 40-minute address, Browne left the proceedings. He was due at a meeting of Cabinet at the Prime Minister’s Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s.

His diagnosis comes at a times when the Government is seeking to allay public fears that there is no outbreak of the virus. It is the first report among recent cases that a minister has contracted dengue.

Health Minister Jerry Narace has repeatedly maintained that there has been no dengue epidemic. At a forum in August, Chief Medical Officer Dr Anton Cumberbatch said there were 1,000 reported cases of dengue in the country this year and that the last major outbreak was in 2002, with 6,308 cases. At that media briefing at Park Plaza recently, Cumberbatch had said the death of six-year-old Sasha Bickram of Freeport could not be classified as dengue since an autopsy was not done nor a confirmation test at the Public health Laboratory.

So far, the Ministry of Health has confirmed that there have been two deaths associated with the disease. The ministry has not released the names of those persons who have died from the disease. In the aftermath of recent floods which raised fears that the disease might have spread, public buildings - health centres, schools, for instance, were sprayed by the Insect Vector Control Division. Narace yesterday said his ministry is considering working with CEPEP to deal with the country’s dengue problem. Addressing the post-Cabinet media conference at the Prime Minister’s Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s, Narace stated that he outlined the measures being taken by the ministry to deal with dengue during debate in the Senate on the 2008 Regional Health Authorities Regulations on Tuesday. Narace said: “We continue to examine it on an on-going basis.”

He said the ministry last week increased the number of workers, the number of chemicals and vehicles being used for insect vector control. The minister said an additional 331 schools have been sprayed and the ministry’s dengue public education programme has been intensified.