KAILUA-KONA — Big news about Hawaii Island’s dengue fever outbreak is expected today.
After the state Department of Health posted on its website Tuesday that it would no longer be updating daily its dengue fever outbreak numbers, a spokeswoman confirmed to West Hawaii Today that Gov. David Ige would be addressing the vector-borne illness today.
Ige will make an announcement to the state on the “status of the dengue fever outbreak,” Janice Okubo told West Hawaii Today Tuesday after the newspaper inquired about the notice posted during the afternoon.
“While HDOH will continue to closely monitor for new cases of locally transmitted disease, this site will no longer be updated on a daily basis after April 26, 2016,” the notice posted at https://health.hawaii.gov/docd/dengue-outbreak-2015 read.
Okubo had no further information about additional details about the announcement, including whether the outbreak would be declared over.
“We really don’t have anything else to say until tomorrow,” she said.
Civil Defense Administrator Darryl Oliveira could not be reached for comment as of press time on Tuesday. An update was posted on Civil Defense’s website at 3 p.m. Tuesday but didn’t mention today’s address.
The Department of Health on Tuesday also posted an updated risk area map on the website that said no new activity had been reported and no areas on the island posed risk for infection as of April 20. That updates a map issued March 23 that listed the area mauka of Hookena as a moderate-risk area for infection and Kukio, Kalaoa, Kailua-Kona, Captain Cook, Kealakekua and Volcano as low-risk areas. No areas had a high risk for dengue infection last month.
According to the Department of Health, an outbreak cannot be declared over until four weeks after the end of the infectious period of the last known case. A person is usually infectious for about a week.
No new cases of dengue fever have been confirmed on Hawaii Island in more than a month. The last case announced by the department was March 23 and the last onset of illness was March 17.
Since the start of the outbreak Sept. 11, 2015, 264 cases of the mosquito-borne virus have been confirmed on the island. Of those cases, 138 were Hawaii Island residents and 26 were visitors. Forty-six of the cases have been children younger than age 18.
While 264 cases were confirmed, state health officials were able to exclude 1,643 reported cases based on test results and/or not meeting case criteria.
State health officials first announced the outbreak Oct. 27. On Feb. 8, Mayor Billy Kenoi issued a 60-day emergency proclamation; Ige followed suit on Feb. 12 and he extended the proclamation, which also covers Zika virus, for 60 days on April 11. Kenoi’s proclamation, based on its sunset, expired April 7.
