In 2003 the Ministry Of Health And Wellness was awarded a certificate for the elimination of malaria in Belize, along with the 4 other countries in the region that have achieved elimination status. But recently that elimination status was threatened, after 2 cases of malaria were confirmed in the South.
Dr Diaz Musa gave us more details on that today, and the work their rapid response team has done to prevent any spread.
Dr Melissa Diaz Musa, Director of Public Health & Wellness
"We have on February 10th diagnosed 2 cases of Malaria in a village, Cirque Sarco Toledo district. Immediately we went into the village and we tested over 200 persons. Everyone has tested negative and we have done our enhanced surveillance around that area and of course management, treatments, spraying, everything that comes with when we diagnose a case of malaria. These 2 cases are considered imported cases which means that these cases were, these persons were infected outside of Belize and these persons had visited Guatemala in recent weeks prior to their diagnosis and so these cases are considered imported cases. Even though they are considered imported we still exactly what we would do if it was a local transmitted case: we do testing, we do health education, we spray the homes we offer beed nets, we do everything else in order for this malaria not to spread to any other persons in the area. So to date and as of yesterday we received all the pictures and the reports with regards to the success of the team the Ministry of Health's team that went out to Cirque Sarco and the work that they have done it has been tremendous and they worked on it very quickly and so far we have not found another case that is positive."
