A donated Helmer Scientific freezer is on its way to Roatan, Honduras to help improve the diagnosis of Dengue fever on the island. Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne illness that results in flu-like symptoms and can be fatal in more severe cases. The extreme bone and joint pain experienced by those infected have earned dengue the nickname “breakbone fever". Over the last 25 years, Dengue has been on the rise in Latin America and the Caribbean. There is no vaccine or medication that protects against the disease, and half a million patients are hospitalized each year. Furthermore, the Caribbean bares the highest societal cost per person from Dengue fever according to the National Institute for Health. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine that helps prevents this disease, yet Helmer’s donation will play a vital role in ongoing research on Dengue fever at Roatan Public Hospital. Global Healing President Luke Ifland commented on the donation saying, “This is such a tremendous donation for Roatan – they desperately need medical grade equipment. Roatan’s Public Hospital only has a domestic refrigerator-freezer capable of maintaining -5°C, which is inappropriate for laboratory or medical purposes.”
Due to limited access to analytical laboratory methods only available on mainland Honduras, standard practice on the island of Roatan is to diagnose Dengue fever based primarily on clinical symptoms. To greatly impact study progress, the much-needed donation of the medical-grade freezer will be used for a collaborative study conducted by Helmer Scientific partner Global Healing, the University of California-San Francisco, Public Hospital Roatan, and the Bay Islands Public Health Department. The Global Healing study will compare clinical symptom-based diagnoses to laboratory diagnoses of suspected Dengue cases. The study will also map cases of Dengue fever geographically to understand outbreaks and how they correlate with other factors, such as environment, household income and other demographics. The freezer donated by Helmer Scientific will continue to be used by the Public Hospital Roatan for laboratory specimen storage and plasma storage after the study is completed.
