3 NEW CHIKV DEATHS IN JAMAICA: VERE Technical High School has been plunged into mourning following the Chikungunya virus (CHIKV)-related deaths of two teachers and a student within two days.

Friday, October 17, 2014

VERE Technical High School has been plunged into mourning following the Chikungunya virus (CHIKV)-related deaths of two teachers and a student within two days.

Vere Technical High principal Dr Henrietta Stewart in her
 office at the Clarendon school.

The Ministry of Education yesterday reported that Shamari Salesman, a fifth-form student at the Clarendon-based school died on Wednesday after showing symptoms of CHIKV. The 15-year-old is said to have developed complications due to an existing tumour in the brain.

Person Toranty, a physics teacher, died later that day after experiencing symptoms associated with the virus. He is believed to have developed complications related to sickle cells disease.

English teacher Claudette Anderson-Hibbert died yesterday morning in the Mandeville Hospital, also from complications related to CHIKV and an existing kidney problem.

"We are so devastated, the staff and also the students alike," Principal Henritta Stewart told the Jamaica Observer.

She explained that other guidance counsellors from various schools in the area, and religious leaders have been visiting with staff and students.

Meanwhile, the education ministry said it has joined the school community in mourning the death of the three.

"The ministry's regional trauma team visited the institution yesterday to provide grief counselling and general support to the school family," the ministry said in a release issued to the media yesterday.

Chikungunya cases development in Western
 Hemisphere from 2013

On September 25, 2014, official authorities in El Salvador report over 30,000 confirmed cases of this new epidemy.^[79] The new epidemy is also on the raise in Jamaica.^[80][81]Tourists to those countries are bearing the risk to bring the virus to their own countries.

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