COSTA RICA NEWS – The Ministrio de Salud (Ministry of Health) is assessing whether it should permit year-end and new year mass events in the face of the threat of the Chikungunya virus.
On Monday, the Director of Health, Priscilla Herrera, explained that Chikungunya infections continue to rise, and the reason for evaluating each of the events.
Health officials say it has received permit requests for 25 massive events that include: Festival de la Luz (December 14), the Zapote Festival (starting December 25) and the Tope Nacional (horse parade on December 26), all three in San José; the Palmares Festival in January; and the Santa Cruz, Guanacaste celebrations, also in January.
“We want to avoid a risk of contagion to the rest of the population, the reason that we could suspend some events,” said Herrera.
The Director added that there are two main factors that could increase the number of infections at this time of the year: the vacation period as people head to the beaches and resorts, and Nicaraguans coming back from holidays in their country.
The Ministry of Health confirmed Friday the second homegrown case of Chikungunya; a 25-year-old woman from Costa de Pájaros, in Puntarenas.
In addition, Health officials are suspecting a mixed outbreak of Dengue and Ckinjungunay in Santa Cruz de Guanacaste.
In the Guanacaste province there has been an increase in Dengue since late September, with an average of 77 new cases recorded weekly.
WTH????? Cancel things for something that may happen? We all could die tomorrow from a car crash (or more likely getting hit by a car it seems) – so should we cancel everyone’s driver license?
That is one of the most foolish things I’ve seen in ages since it’s not even a problem in CR.
Chikungunya is not something people can catch from each other. It’s from mosquitoes.
So in my logical world, wouldn’t it be wiser/more efficient to work with eradicating the problem before hand? I
can’t believe I’m going to say this as I’m very anti chemicals – but
start now spraying the hell out of the areas these people will be going
to to kill the squiters off.
Especially since these festivals bring such joy to the people of CR and even more especially because times are tougher and many don’t have as much money and/or to be joyful over.
This doesn’t make any sense. Cancelling these events would have zero effect. Chikungunya and Dengue are both transmitted by mosquitoes and cannot be spread by human to human contact. Maybe they want to ban people from going outside? Is it possible that the very Ministry of Health itself is infected with some sort of “brain fever”? Maybe we should put them all in quarantine.