Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter

With 56 cases of malaria found in Jamaica, chief union delegate for medical technologists in the public sector, Leeford Bennett, yesterday urged the Government to hire more members of the profession to deal with the growing number of cases.

"It would be good if we could have the cadre that we were supposed to have," Bennett told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.

Currently, there are 108 medical technologists in the public sector across the island and the system would begin to function effectively when there are about 200.

He said it is hoped that the reclassification of medical technologists, which is long overdue, would be done next year and all vacancies filled. "So we have the number of persons when we have a crisis like this."

Apart from assisting physicians in the effective care and management of patients who are ill, the work of medical technologists supports and enables other critical areas of public health such as the detection and surveillance of diseases outbreaks; the emergence of drug-resistant organisms; provision of epidemiological data to inform health education and policy planning, and the assessment of risk to chronic diseases.

Backlog of samples

As a result of the shortage of medical technologists and the backlog of samples to be tested, the Ministry of Health announced last week that it would be turning to the private labs to assist with testing.

The Health Ministry reported on December 1, that there were four confirmed cases of malaria. The number has since climbed to 56, approximately half of the persons have been treated and sent home.

The initially-affected areas are: Denham Town, Tivoli Gardens, Trench Town and Delacree Park, all in the Corporate Area. Cases have since been found in Rose Town, Wilton Gardens (Rema), Whitfield Town, among other communities. Cases were also found in Portmore, Sydenham Villas and Church Pen in St. Catherine.

The Health Minister, Horace Dalley, said his ministry is expected to uncover more cases of malaria because the incubation period of the infection is seven to 14 days.

Health centres opened

Yesterday, several health centres in the affected areas were opened to facilitate persons with malaria symptoms.

Bennett, who is also the chief medical technologist at the Comprehensive Health Centre, Kingston, said up to 4:30 p.m. yesterday, eight persons visited his health centre and had their blood withdrawn.

Meanwhile, Dr. Marion Bullock-DuCasse, director of emergency services in the Ministry of Health, said her ministry intensified its community activities yesterday and dispatched eight additional teams to conduct fever surveillance, among other things, in the affected areas to identify new cases.

She noted that her ministry also continued to search for breeding sites, and fogging was expected to take place in the affected communities last night.