The Index Case

Case Study

Mason J. was part of a group called the “Water emptier”. They went around and emptied sources of stagnant water which attracts mosquitoes. Mason was Caucasian male in his early thirties and was approximately 6 foot 2. He lived in a well populated area in the Caribbean islands.  He was happily married and had two children, Charlotte (Charley) and Gene. Before going to work he dropped Charley and Gene off to school, then he grabbed a quick cup of coffee went to work. Today they were going to travel to a little town to go through and get rid of all standing water. When they got there saw that the town was poorly developed. Although they did not have running water they still had gotten a lot of rain. Many of the children’s toys were left out side and were collecting water. There were over turned pots and pans outside collecting rain water. It was not going to be easy they all thought and got started talking to people and making arrangements. There were two parts the asking questions and finding answers part then there was the clean up and promises part. They split up in twos to each house; Mason and his partner Dan were assigned the last six houses. They went from house to house asking questions like “why are there pans outside?” and “what could make life easier here for all of them?” Most of the house’s reply was the same. All they really wanted was to get running water. Afterwards they went out and empty all the stagnant water. Many of them realized that the mosquitoes there were really bad and as they got closer and closer to the end they discovered why. There look as though there were houses there at one time because there was a troth filled with water and all over the surface was swarming with mosquitoes.  It took 3 hours several bits and all of the men to clear it out. At the end of the day only 4 people had gotten bitten. When they got back to the office there boss gave them all the rest of the week off.  Mason went home had a nice hot shower and went to bed.

When he woke the next day he felt different. He didn’t feel like moving. So he stayed in bed the whole day. The next morning he felt even worse. He had a really bad headache and a very high temperature. He had pain behind his eye and they were red. Later on in the day he developed a flushed face, lower back pains and chills. He had weakness and fatigue and severe pains in his joints and muscles. This went on for another six days. After all this his family started to keep their distance they didn’t know what was making their father sick, so they went to go live with Danielle’s (his wife) parents. On the seventh day his fever dropped rapidly and he sweat heavily. On the ninth day he his temperature increases once again and small red bumps started to appear all over his body. His hands and his feet both turned a bright red just like his eyes and they began to swell. Mason J. experienced extreme weakness along with fatigue.

  Mason had not gotten out of bed in two weeks. He had internal bleeding and swelling. He thought he was going to die from everything that was happening to him. At that point he had decided to go to the hospital the pain was just too much for him to bare any longer. He caught a cab to the nearest hospital and was admitted at once. Doctors preformed many test and could not decided on what Mason had. He had a rash like the measles but he had symptoms like the flu. They finally decided to say that it was a new disease and they really could not prescribe any thing for him because they didn’t know what it would do to him.

In the end Mason J. became the index case of Dengue fever. He went home and two days later all his symptoms cleared his family moved back in and surprisingly not one of them caught Dengue Fever even though they were in the house for seven days. This showed doctors that the new disease was only transmitted through what they thought gave Mason J. the disease and that was the mosquito…..