24 Dec 2008

American Samoa Governor calls for immediate action on dengue

2:51 pm on 24 December 2008

American Samoa's governor, Togiola Tulafono, has told a community meeting that dengue fever remains a serious threat in the Territory.

The meeting was called by the Director of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the American Samoa Community College Land Grants to lay out a plan to fight dengue.

To date the LBJ Hospital has recorded 645 confirmed cases of dengue fever this year.

Plans by the agencies to tackle the problem includes a clean up and multi media publicity campaign to promote the three Ds to combat dengue.

Governor Togiola told the organisers they needed to start from the grassroots up not the other way around.

He also says action needs to be taken now.

"This is a serious threat and you guys are treating like we can take our time at it and it's not going to be a serious problem to next year, forget it, this is serious, 218 cases in November, that's way, way too much already."

The governor says groups also need to look at spraying areas again to kill mosquitoes.