57. Possible infectious disease outbreak near Joyce Green Hospital ?

Key words/phrases: mosquito bites, NHS Direct, West Nile and Dengue viruses, North Kent marshes, Professor Christopher Curtis, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, malarial epidemics, River Thames, Long Reach, Joyce Green Hospital, Temple Hill Estate.

No. 57

Having suffered from heavy rain and floods in parts of England this summer it now seems that people in certain parts of Great Britain are also suffering from being bitten by mosquitoes more frequently than usual.

Figures released from the NHS Direct organisation show that their helpline received 1,491 mosquito bite-related calls in the first 12 days of August compared with 1,157 over the same period in 2006, with a 28% rise in enquiries in England alone.

Whilst many Britons have been battling with the exceptionally bad weather and its results it appears that the mosquito population has been benefiting from the warm damp conditions.

Apart from mild degrees of physical and social irritation our indigenous species don’t usually create any serious health problems for Britons. That however might be about to change in the light of sightings of various ‘foreign’ species of blood-sucking insects - including the Asian tiger mosquito which can carry the potentially fatal West Nile and Dengue viruses.

Cast iron proof of the latter has yet to be confirmed but the Anopheles atroparvus mosquito, now well established on the North Kent marshes and Anopheles plumbeus, that is widespread in both the South East of England and in London,have the potential, according to Professor Chris Curtis of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, to carry the malaria virus.

Prior to now 99% of cases of malaria diagnosed in Great Britain have been restricted to people returning from mosquito-infested countries. This is because in order for someone to contract malaria here the individual would need to have been bitten in the UK by a mosquito that had recently fed on the blood one of the 2,000 infected people coming into England from abroad.

Now however, because disease-inducing mosquitoes are thought to be coming into the UK amidst cargo, on aircraft and by other means, it appears that the UK is at risk again of the type of malarial epidemics that were common in England before World War I.

Thus this increase in the number of types of malaria-spreading mosquitoes now present in the British Isles and the reminder about the already-established presence of both the Anopheles atroparvus and the Anopheles plumbeus species on the North Kent marshes, in the London area and in the South East of England generally has made me wonder if Dartford could feature in the news soon as one of the areas producing cases of malaria ?

After all it seems quite possible that malarial-carrying mosquitoes could piggy-back their way up the River Thames on cargo vessels and disembark in the Long Reach area and then settle on the marshes near to the old Joyce Green Hospital site. Thus it seems to me not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility that Dartfordians in general and residents of the Temple Hill Estate in particular could become the focus of these pest’s attentions. What do you think ?

Obviously I hope that I am wrong and that the Joyce Green area of Dartford does NOT once again become known as an area characterised by the presence of infectious diseases, and that history does NOT repeat itself again, albeit in a slightly different form.