Tonga lacks equipment to treat hemorrhagic dengue [1]
Monday, February 5, 2018 - 18:18. Updated on Monday, February 5, 2018 - 18:19.
By Eleanor Gee
As dengue cases increase to 52 on Tongatapu as of this afternoon, 5 February, a medical officer from the Ministry of Health admitted they lack the ability to treat hemorrhagic dengue because they are waiting to replace a broken centrifuge.
“Unfortunately the centrifuge that we require in the lab to prepare platelets to be transfused to serious dengue cases packed-up in November 2017," said Dr Eka Buadromo.
She said “the 40-year-old equipment could not be repaired any more by our biomedical team”.
Knowing the risk to people when there aren’t any blood products, Dr Buadromo said an emergency order was placed for a centrifuge, but there have been lots of delays in purchasing the equipment.
“We hope it will arrive soon.”
She said that in the meantime they are praying they don’t have another very serious case as the young New Zealand girl, Toafei Felefoni (12) who died in Tonga last month, when she went into dengue hemorrhagic shock without hospital treatment.
However, she confirmed that all hospitals in Tonga are equipped with dengue test kits, similar to the primary test done in New Zealand.
“We also do have full blood count tests to monitor the likelihood of someone progressing to critical stage of hemorrhagic dengue with very low platelets.”
The uncle of dengue victim, Toafei Telefoni (12), raised concerns at the lack of laboratory facilities in Tonga for dengue and has called on New Zealand to provide medical assistance to Tonga to avoid another tragedy.
The Ministry of Health is urging people to take precautionary measures to prevent the spread of dengue such as reducing the breeding sites of mosquitos by clearing rubbish, spraying houses, using bed nets and insect repellents and wearing long sleeved clothes. A national clean-up campaign is also underway.
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Uncle of dengue victim says Tonga needs help to control epidemic [2]