By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterA NINE-MONTH-OLD baby girl died in Kingston on Friday after developing gastroenteritis. Her death brought to nine the number of children who have died in the current gastroenteritis outbreak in south-eastern Jamaica.
Dr. Deanna Ashley, director of the Health Ministry's Health Protection and Promotion division, in confirming yesterday, the death of the baby, indicated that the baby may not have received the most appropriate medical care.
"You're not supposed to die from gastro. Nobody should be telling anybody about anti-diarrhoeals. The baby should have received fluids, in small amounts, frequently," she told The Gleaner yesterday in a telephone interview.
According to Dr. Ashley, the baby was given injections and anti-diarrhoeals, interventions which at least one of the baby's attending doctors suggested would bring the characteristic "running belly" symptoms of gastroenteritis under control.
"(She was) a nine month-old infant that was well-nourished. Unfortunately she went to two private doctors for a two-day period prior to coming to the (Bustamante) Children's Hospital," Dr. Ashley said.
On July 22, the Health Ministry announced that an outbreak of gastroenteritis had already claimed the lives of eight children between the ages of five months and two years old. The condition, the ministry said, had especially sprung up in children living in the south-eastern parishes of St. Catherine, Kingston and St. Andrew and St. Thomas.
Warnings were given against the use of anti-diarrhoeals and anti-emetic medication in children as, the ministry said, the relief caused by these medicines could delay proper treatment and result in serious consequences "including death".
Also, Dr. Ashley said that the ministry was continuing its investigation of the circumstances leading to the outbreak which is caused by the rotavirus germ. The rotavirus, she explained, usually surfaces in the cooler months and those gastroenteritis cases seen in the summer months were usually caused by bacteria such as salmonella and shigella.
"So far we haven't picked up any of those (bacterial) kinds of cases," she added.
Though unable to provide definitive figures, Dr. Ashley said that up to Friday the number of new cases seen each day had not decreased and indications were that the infection rate has not yet peaked.
Dr. Karen Lewis-Bell, the Health Ministry's director of Family Health Services, told The Gleaner recently that there was a marginal increase in gastroenteritis cases in the first half of this year when compared to the same period last year and in comparing figures for July 2002 and 2003, there was a doubling of the cases in July 2003.
According to Government figures, there were 14,817 case up to July this year compared to 13,850 in the same period last year. While in the period July 6-12, 2003 there were 791 cases compared to 349 cases in same period last year.
