The mosquito breeds in water and this usually peaks during the rainy season, but officials said that for the first half of this year the number of positive homes already outstripped all of last year's by 45 per cent.

"Last year we had over 2 000 houses positive and up to this point in time about 2 900 houses positive," Chief Vector Control Officer Emmerson Yearwood said yesterday as the Ministry of Health launched a three-month anti-dengue campaign.

Senior Medical Officer Dr. Ronald Knight said they were very concerned about the killer strains of the virus which are spread through the bite of a female Aedes aegypti mosquito.

"The real threat for us is dengue haemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome," said Knight. "Both of these complications can result from any one of the four serotypes which cause the disease and these two illnesses kill.

"Over the last four to five years we had a number of deaths, so that is a major concern for us in Barbados and every effort has to be directed towards the elimination and control of the mosquito."

During that period 17 people died of the disease out of a total of 6 448 people who became ill, up to last month.

"Dengue fever, like tourism, is everybody's business and we all have to play our part in eradicating and controlling the spread of dengue and dengue fever," Knight added.

According to a recent survey by the Ministry of Health Barbadians were not aware of how dengue fever can be contracted and the anti-dengue campaign which was launched yesterday will provide educational messages, through the media, to correct this gap of knowledge.

Yearwood and Knight stressed that the emphasis towards controlling dengue is by controlling the mosquito and this could be done through eliminating mosquito breeding.