St Barts Island under Dengue Fever Pre-Alert
Bad new for St Barts Island: The local authorities are about to declare a dengue fever alert for both St Barts and St Marteen (St Martin). Tourists should not worry, though: Dengue fever is prevalent in places such as Singapore and Rio and nobody panics!
Dengue fever is rare on St Barts, as our small island is much cleaner than most surrounding islands. Yet, this season has been very rainy and hot, helping mosquitoes mutliply.
What to do if you are a tourist: just use mosquito repellents containing DEET. They can be bought everywhere on the island, in supermarkets and pharmacies. Good ol’ OFF contains DEET, so nothing spectacular needs to be used here.
I do not think that this wil have a big impact on St Barts. Sanitary conditions are among the best in the Caribbean, there are lots of qualified doctors on the island, and the local authorities will probably soon enforce a new mosquito eradication campaign. Been there, done that, don’ t worry.
More about Dengue Fever on Wikipedia.
Tourist should worry (or at least be concerned). I would not care how many qualified doctors are available. Once you have it there is not really much a doctor can do for you. You just suffer miserably for 7-10 days.
From my internet research, it appears Dengue is “on the rise” in several Caribbean destinations and the government and those that serve the tourist do not want you to know about it (or worry about it).
“Been there, done that, don’ t worry.” is not a fair statement. If your island wants the tourist $, eradication must be ongoing, not crisis event.
“Following a meeting on St. Barths on December 3, 2007 to assess the Dengue situation there, the working committee of experts on infectious diseases and the Institut de Veille Sanitaire (IVS) of French St. Martin have declared St. Barths and St. Martin in an ‘epidemic alert phase.”