Dengue and malaria will wreak havoc on the population

Infectious diseases such as dengue, malaria, leptospirosis, and others will wreak havoc in the country after the rains that occurred in recent days, evils that affect the most vulnerable population, the president of the Dominican Medical Association (CMD) warned Friday.

Dr. Wilson Roa Familia, president of the entity that organizes doctors, said that the poor who live in the neighborhoods and rural communities of the country are the most sensitive population, so they will be the most affected by these diseases.

He indicated that the poorest are those who go to state hospitals in search of improving their ailments and who go there and cannot get medicated because many health centers have difficulties.

He said that the health authorities, much less the Health Risk Administrators (ARD), do not worry about earmarking economic resources in educating the population through promotional campaigns, in order to avoid being infected with these evils.

“These educational and promotional campaigns should be carried out with a public character, directed by the State, not directed by the intermediaries or the private sector so that it reaches the population directly,” he said.

“To date, the dengue has not claimed victims, but after the rains, if the authorities do not drive continuous educational and promotional campaigns to avoid diseases, there will be many deaths due to dengue, malaria, and others throughout the DR,” said the president of CMD.

Primary care

He said that’s why the CMD insists and defends that Primary Health Care starts from the first level and not the second or third so that it benefits the poorest who are most affected by infectious diseases.
“Only in a country like ours do Government and Social Security officials ally with the Health Risk Managers (ARS) to do business and settle these companies, because they want to continue to swell their coffers at the expense of poorer with primary care, advocating that it starts at the third level, because that’s where the sector pays.”

Dr. Roa Familia emphasized that the country will not advance at the health level until it is understood that primary care is the way to overcome the ills that affect the population.

He explained that in Social Security there are three regimes, the contributory, subsidized and subsidized contributory, the latter has not entered, “but you have the problem that the majority of patients who die, who become infected with dengue, belong to the subsidized regime.”

“The Government must assume the regulation of private services and assume the direction of the public service, but there are interests in the Government that have not allowed us to advance in social security,” said CMD president, Dr. Roa Familia.

Digepi

According to the bulletin of the General Directorate of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Public Health (Digepi), in the last four epidemiological weeks, 425 probable cases of dengue were reported.

The report states that 80%, a total of 341 affected, of the cases correspond to children under 15 years of age.

The municipalities with the highest incidence of cases during this period are Santo Domingo Este (76), Santo Domingo de Guzmán (44), Barahona (32), Santo Domingo Norte (26) and Baní (25).

With regard to the circulation of the dengue virus, in 69% of the analyzed samples, an immune response was detected.