Countries in the region like Trinidad and Tobago have already registered over 20 cases of swine flu. Jamaica and Barbados have 19 and 10 reported cases, respectively, according to the World Health Organization, while neighbouring islands Martinique and Antigua have two confirmed cases each.

Countries in the region like Trinidad and Tobago have already registered over 20 cases of swine flu. Jamaica and Barbados have 19 and 10 reported cases, respectively, according to the World Health Organization, while neighbouring islands Martinique and Antigua have two confirmed cases each.

On Monday an early morning radio announcement by the chief medical officer Dr Josiah Rambally made it known that St Lucia was the 107th country in the world to confirm the presence of the H1N1 influenza, swine flu, in its midst.
On Friday June 26th results for the island’s first confirmed swine flu case which were sent to the Caribbean Epidemiology Center, (CAREC) for testing on Thursday came back positive. Cyprian Yarde, director of health promotion said the situation was imminent given the fact that the virus was widespread around the world.
“In the Caribbean we’ve had ten countries [getting the virus] before us so therefore the situation in St Lucia is not new,” the director of health promotion said at an emergency press conference on Monday, June 29th at the GIS conference room. “We’re at the stage now where we have to step up efforts to contain the spread of the virus and of course, to observe the precautionary measures that need to be taken and to unfold the plans that we have put forward
thus far.”
The chief medical officer was represented by senior medical officer Dr Merlene Frederick at the conference. Frederick said the case in question involved a 32-year-old female who’d recently returned from travel to the United Kingdom.
Merlene Frederick started by commending the patient and her private doctor, “who’d done the right thing.”
“The patient came in and realized that she had some flu symptoms, fever, sore throat, running nose, and she did the right thing, she went to a private practitioner. The practitioner did the right thing as well by having tests done to rule out H1N1 influenza.
Rapid testing was done locally at Victoria Hospital’s lab at no cost. Even there the particular case result turned out positive for influenza A, which Frederick explained, did not necessarily equal H1N1 until sent to CAREC for confirmation. Despite the uncertainty of the situation, the patient was started on Tamiflu, an antiviral prescription drug used to treat influenza as well as N1H1 influenza as of late, once the result was confirmed to be positive.
On a lighter note Frederick said the patient was “doing much better,” and “improving very nicely.”
“She’s practically fine by now which is good,” said the senior medical officer. “Her closest contacts have all remained symptom free which is good also. Although this is the first confirmed case, she is not the first patient tested for this illness. We have received multiple test samples from both the public and private health sector.”
There were questions from the media regarding the time lapse between the patient’s travel and doctor’s visit since the patient had apparently not been identified through airport screening measures that are reportedly still active.
In response Frederick said she had no specifics at hand but indicated that there were cases where persons could come into a country healthy and develop symptoms afterwards.
“The symptoms may look like symptoms of the common cold and it may not be anything dramatic at first,” the senior medical officer explained. We’re just letting the public know so they can be aware. It’s the holiday season, persons traveling from a country that is affected by H1N1 especially countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries in the Caribbean like Trinidad where there are lots of cases, those persons need to be vigilant.
“We’ve contacted persons who may have been in contact with her and this was one through a collaborative effort involving port health, immigration and the travel agents. All the persons so far have been symptom free.”
Dr Ayo Adesanya, internal medical consultant at Victoria Hospital, who also spoke at the press conference, advised voluntary quarantine for anyone who was suspected of having contact with a known patient or anyone who had traveled to a country with swine flu cases.
“That means they have to limit movement; stay at home, don’t go to the supermarkets, don’t go to the banks, don’t go to any mass crowd events for at least seven days. For confirmed cases isolation can be at home or at the hospital. Only the severely ill, someone who’s having difficulty breathing, someone who is vomiting, will be admitted to the hospital. Those are the factors we look at.”
In confirmed cases, quarantine became isolation, about seven to ten days depending on the severity of illness. Overall Adesanya advised anyone with flu like symptoms to stay home. “Stay away for at least one week and your physician will give you the necessary sick leave. This is what we’re laying emphasis on.”
Presently measures at Victoria Hospital for H1N1 include an isolation room that would be expanded to the dedication of an entire ward to swine flu if the situation on island worsens. In the words of Merlene Frederick, “if the situation gets really terrible, then the whole hospital becomes a flu center. In that case, flu cases would be kept at VH and non-flu cases sent to “St Jude’s, Dennery, Soufriere and managed elsewhere.”