Although the histoplasmosis outbreak, which kept nine patients hospitalized until the previous week, has ended, the restrictive and epidemiological surveillance measures are maintained in the ruins of the Angerona coffee plantation, in the main city of the Artemisa province, since the presence of bats in the site keeps alert.
Faced with this eventuality, it is mandatory for workers and those who access the place “the use of face mask; avoid removing the soil with the presence of feces; Do not enter the area of the caves where bats live, and moisten the walls with water and hypochlorite,” says Raymundo Verde, Head of the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology in the municipality of Artemisa.
A yellow tape was placed at the entrance to contain the passage of people and the possibility of closing contaminated spaces permanently was extended, although it is Precise signaling with the visualization of the problem.
Reveca Figueredo Valdés, head of the Department of Heritage, in the Provincial Directorate of Culture, explains that “religious or other events are not authorized at that site, declared a National Monument since 1981, for which reason those who do so violate what is established.”
The event that led to the contagion took place in the cistern area on January 29; However, “the study and control of the focus began on February 22, when those affected went to the Health services, before the onset of symptoms, such as headache, muscle pain, intermittent fever… that can appear between three and 17 days after the exhibition”, Verde expanded.
The activity in question led to “35 people being exposed and 26 infected (74.2%); seven children between one and 19 years. Those admitted received care at the San Cristóbal and Artemisa hospitals; and in addition, nine sputa and 13 monosera were taken, transferred to the Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK) for analysis, ”explained the epidemiologist.
This infectious disease is produced by inhaling spores of the fungus that causes it. histoplasma capsulatumpresent in bat feces, and can cause pneumonia that is very difficult to treat, with radiographic follow-up and antifungal administration, depending on the stage of the disease.
In the area of the cisterns or caves there are old water deposits in whose soil there are favorable conditions for the growth of this fungus fertilized by the guano of the mammal, and where contact occurred as a result of a religious ceremony, whose participants -due to ignorance or negligence – entered the premises.
Angerona encompasses the remains of the manor house, the foreman’s house, the slave barracks, the watchtower and six cisterns, once used as a water reservoir for the coffee industry; “It was included in the list of threatened monuments so that the province makes an effort to remove it from that status,” adds Figueredo Valdés.