Health Department intensifies fight against malaria

More than 70 samples of blood have been collected in a section of St Catherine where a man who tested positive for malaria resides.

"I am pleased to report that all samples returned negative," Grayson Hutchinson, acting chief public health inspector at the St Catherine Health Department said.

Hutchinson told councillors attending the first monthly meeting of the St Catherine Municipal Corporation on Thursday that systems have been put in place to minimise the transmission of malaria.

The Ministry of Health has confirmed that there have been two imported cases of malaria.

The first case is a Jamaican national, who was living in Ghana, and returned to Jamaica in November 2016. The second case is a male, Indian national, who arrived in Jamaica in March 2016.

Hutchinson said that the health department has mobilized its vector control team that has so far visited approximately 400 houses in St Catherine.

According to the public health official, breeding sites for the anopheles mosquito that transmit the malaria virus are now been targeted and fogging is presently taking place.