Patient at the Delices Health Clinic

Today we visited Delices and helped educate the patients in the health clinic on various disease states like skin infections and hypertension.  With our time spent there, I encountered a patient who's child has had an itchy rash on his legs and arms.  She has been treating it with a product containing the drugs neomycin, beclomethasone, and clotrimazole cream.  She states that the rash may have come about from the child playing outside in the dirt or possibly their pet dog scratching his skin and causing some sort of bacteria to enter and causing this.  I discussed with her about properly cleansing the skin and making sure to apply the cream as directed by the physician.  After we discussed her child's condition, we talked about skin infections (like ring worm and dengue fever), and she actually educated me on some herbals to use to help treat rashes.  She said that the peel from a papaya can be applied to the skin to help treat rash which  I was unaware of.  We also discussed about dengue fever which hit the island hard in years past but is well controlled today.  This infection is caused by a mosquito that if infected with bacteria and bites you can cause excessive bruising under the skin.  The mosquito she said appears black with white stripes that lays in dry containers and commonly bites at dusk.

-Anthony