Mother loses only child to dengue

Imagine raising your only child until she is eight years old and then in the space of one week, lose her to illness?

That is the reality of 32-year-old Simone Lewis, who lost her daughter Karrisa Downer to dengue on November 1.

She told THE STAR that since her daughter's death, things have not been the same. She has friends and family who rally around her, but nothing they say will bring her baby girl back.

Lewis said it all started on October 21 when she carried Karrisa to get her checked and was informed that she had an infection in her throat.

Lewis said that the doctors gave her medication, however, within the week, things only got worse.

"I brought her back to the doctor the Friday (October 25) and she was checked and the doctor said it looked like she had symptoms of dengue, so I got a letter to go to Children's (Bustamante Hospital for Children). I brought her there that same night and when they did the tests, they said that she had it but after that everything just start go bad, bad," she said.

In the space of a week, Lewis said that her daughter developed pneumonia, she could hardly breathe, and her organs began to shut down.

She said the doctors tried but there was not much they could do because her baby girl had dengue haemorrhagic fever, which can cause severe bleeding, a sudden drop in blood pressure (shock) and death.

Medically induced coma

She said that for the week, Karrisa had to be placed in a medically induced coma.

"She stopped breathing on Sunday morning (October 27) and they had to put her on life support. The doctors said that her lungs damage, her kidney damage, no urine was passing out. Every time they have a meeting with me, they telling me the same thing, 'she nuh have long because none of her organs are working'. Everything just happen so fast and Friday morning (November 1) she passed away," she said.

The Ministry of Health stated that since the start of 2019, there have been 5,468 suspected cases of dengue.

Last month, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton announced that for the period January 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019, there were 135 suspected and confirmed dengue-related deaths.

He said that 47 deaths were reported in 2018, while 88 occurred in 2019. Of that number, he said 10 occurred in September.

The number of cases has been increasing for the past 10 weeks.

According to the World Health Organisation, Dengue virus is transmitted by female mosquitoes mainly of the species Aedes aegypti and, to a lesser extent, Aedes. Albopictus.

Dengue is widespread throughout the tropics, with local variations in risk influenced by rainfall, temperature, relative humidity, and unplanned rapid urbanisation.