BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth – Health authorities in St Elizabeth now suspect that four deaths among children since October may have resulted from the mosquito-borne disease dengue.

They also suspect that two adults may have died from the effects of leptospirosis in August and September. Leptospirosis is spread by rats.

St Elizabeth’s medical officer for Health Dr Derrick Ledford told the St Elizabeth Parish Council’s monthly meeting yesterday that since the latest outbreak of dengue early last month there have been 56 “suspected cases” of the disease. He said four cases had so far been “confirmed” as dengue.

Post-mortem examinations on three of the four suspected dengue victims had been inconclusive and laboratory testing would be done to confirm the cause of death. Ledford said the fourth post-mortem was yet to be conducted. The suspected dengue fatalities include a 10-month-old, a five-year-old, an 11-year-old and a 14-year-old. They were residents of Lacovia and Santa Cruz as well as the communities of Park Mountain and Waterloo, located just outside Santa Cruz.

There have been more than 300 reported cases of dengue since the outbreak first came to light early last month. Dengue fever, including the potentially fatal dengue haemorrhagic fever, is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, described as a domestic day-biting vector that breeds in the vicinity of homes and population centres and likes to feed on humans.

Dengue symptoms include high fever, severe headache, backache, joint pains, nausea and vomiting, eye pain and rash. The more deadly dengue haemorrhagic fever includes intense fever, bleeding from the mouth and nose and possibly internal bleeding.

In the case of leptospirosis, Ledford told the Observer that there had been 40 “suspected” cases of the disease since July. The deaths of two people said to have been in their “30s and 40s” occurred in August and September, Ledford said. Symptoms of the rat-borne disease are said to include fever and muscle pain as well as yellowing of the eyes.