600 Cases of Dengue = Outbreak?

July 24, 2010 by Taran Rampersad

Just something that's bugging me after seeing the Trinidad and Tobago tabloid newspaper   'written media' headlines at the express checkout line in Hi-Lo:

600 cases in an estimated population of 1.2 million is 0.05% of the population. If we go with another estimate of Trinidad and Tobago's population, 1.5 million, we come up with 0.04% of the population.

Oh. And 3 people? 0.00025% and 0.0002% of the population dead, respectively.

*AHEM*. If we abuse the term 'outbreak' on a national level like that, I wonder how they would classify HIV infection? A really big outbreak? Oh, and the common cold becomes the plague.

That said, it is possible that there is are localized outbreaks in different parts of the country - something good data reporting and collection could and should identify so that one can isolate the problem areas and deal with the mosquito problems in a sensible manner - through triage.

But scaring the public? Socially irresponsible. The media should be doing a better job at informing the public. Perhaps that's a job that the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) could get started on: sensible reporting.

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