By: Omar Silva I Editor/Publisher

National Perspective Belize – Digital 2025

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Monday: 21st April 2025

📝 EDITORIAL

It is no longer a distant threat.

It is at our doorstep.

And still, the Government of Belize continues to govern as if time is on our side.

Recent findings from our northern neighbor, Mexico, should have triggered national alarm. More than 16,000 Yucatecans may already be infected with Chagas disease, a silent and potentially deadly illness transmitted by an insect—the chinche besucona, or kissing bug—that also exists in Belize’s rural north. This disease does not announce itself with drama. It creeps in, lives silently in the bloodstream, and reveals its damage decades later—when the heart begins to fail, the body swells, the lungs struggle, and the digestive system breaks down.

This is a textbook case for proactive government leadership.

Instead, we have a PUP administration that continues to operate with one default setting: reactive mode.

⚠️ A Pattern of Inaction

This is not the first time that Belize has stared down a preventable crisis and chosen political showmanship over public health leadership. During the early days of COVID-19, action came late. During the measles reappearance, we waited until confirmation to sound alarms. And now, with a disease already detected in our own territory, the government waits. Waits for a cluster. Waits for a death. Waits for the people to demand what they should have already provided: protection, surveillance, and education.

Where are the early detection campaigns in northern Belize?

Where is the vector mapping initiative by the Ministry of Health?

Where is the joint task force with Mexico’s Yucatán authorities?

Belize cannot afford another health crisis where rural communities suffer in silence while government ministers play political poker with people's lives.

🧭 Health Security Requires Vision, Not Excuses

What this moment calls for is not another photo op with mosquito foggers. It calls for a national plan that includes:

• Community education in schools, health centers, and farming communities
• Surveillance and testing units equipped to diagnose early Chagas symptoms
• Cross-border epidemiological coordination with Mexico and Guatemala
• Funding for vaccine collaboration and potential procurement once UADY finalizes trials
• Legislative enforcement for insect-proof housing standards in rural development

If this government cannot mobilize in the face of credible, data-backed regional threats, then what exactly is it waiting for?

📢 It’s Time to Lead—Before the Crisis Becomes Ours

The Ministry of Health & Wellness must lead, not lag. The Office of the Prime Minister must act, not distract. The PUP must remember that leadership is not about winning elections—it is about protecting the people in the quiet seasons between elections.

This Chagas threat is a test.

A test of preparedness.

A test of integrity.

A test of whether this administration can finally break the cycle of reaction—and become a government that plans, prevents, and protects.

Belizeans should not have to pay the price—again—for their government’s delay.

✍️ National Perspective Bz