Hawaii Island Declares Dengue Emergency
UPDATED: The proclamation will help the county “stay ahead of the response,” officials said.
Hawaii Island Mayor issued an emergency proclamation Monday to help bolster efforts to combat the ongoing dengue outbreak.
There have been聽250聽confirmed cases of dengue on the Big Island since the outbreak started in October.
The proclamation has been expected since last week, when聽Hawaii County officials said that they were close to making such a move.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not because we don鈥檛 have control of the situation or a shortage of resources currently,鈥 Darryl Oliveira, administrator of Hawaii County鈥檚 Civil Defense Agency, said on Feb. 2. 鈥淲e鈥檇 like to stay ahead of the response.鈥
As a part of the proclamation, Kenoi suspended a county law that prohibits people from disposing of tires at public landfills. Tires are attractive places for mosquitoes to breed, and the county’s waste management program聽had already created a temporary amnesty program allowing residents to聽dispose of up to 10 tires a day.
The dengue outbreak is the biggest in Hawaii since the 1940s.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Health have both sent specialists to Hawaii Island to help with the outbreak.
The CDC has praised Hawaii聽for its聽coordinated response, but warned that the Department of Health had “critical deficiencies” in staffing that could hamper future efforts should another聽outbreak occur.
UPDATED:聽Gov. David Ige said in a Monday afternoon that the state would follow suit and聽declare a聽state of emergency if the outbreak spread to additional islands, if Hawaii Island required “additional resources beyond current levels” to address the outbreak, or if the state needed federal assistance.
