Eighteen people have died from leptospirosis, three succumbed to dengue fever and two lost their lives to typhoid so far this year, says Health Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete.
He made the comment while launching the Leptospirosis, Typhoid, Dengue and Diarrhoea campaign in Ba yesterday.
“We had 1259 of leptospirosis cases, 50 per cent were in the Central Division, 25 per cent in the North and 20 per cent in the Western Division and five per cent in the Eastern Division,” he said.
“Importantly, we’ve had 21 cases in the Intensive Care Units and 18 lives in total have succumbed to leptospirosis this year.
“There were a total of 4193 dengue cases reported. Forty per cent of them in the Central Division, 35 per cent in the North, 21 per cent in the West and two per cent in the Eastern Division.
“There were four ICU admissions and three lives were lost to dengue this year. For typhoid, we had 233 cases with two lives lost.
“These numbers are alarming and depressing and a reflection of what we face because of the challenges that we’ve had, as I have said before, with climate sensitive diseases.”
He said the issue was because of Fiji’s geographical location and a collaborative approach was needed to combat the rise in these illnesses.
“The simple act of maintaining your compound clean and free from litter and waste goes a long way in ensuring that these disease causing organisms do not breed or live amongst us.”
