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Recently, news of children dying from the dengue haemorrhagic fever has been circulating.

For thirty-three-year-old Shekya Dawson knows the pain all too well, and has been carrying it for almost a year.

She lost her four-year-old daughter Leanna Gibbs to the mosquito-borne disease last Christmas Eve, and her life has not been the same since.

"Since she died, I'm having problem remembering stuff. It's really hard. I felt her death before the doctor even told me she was gone. A sturdy pain just rushed from my womb. I beat myself up every day asking why she didn't live a bit longer," she said. Leanna died just minutes before Christmas Day.

The Olympic Way, Kingston resident told THE STAR that she had to helplessly watch as Leanna took her last breath.

"It's really hard for me to talk about her death ... . Each time I do it, it bring me right back to a breaking point when I had to watch her take her last breath. I had to watch her bleed out," she said.

Dawson said that she is still trying to get back on track.

"I'm not coping well because I still suffer some setback after her death. I lost my job and all, and now that I'm not working, it's so hard for me to provide for my other two children that are in high school. Trust me, every single day I'm hurting because the Government hide this virus from the public to the fact that babies had to die before it announced," she said.

Didn't hear anything

The grieving mother says she didn't hear anything about dengue before the period when her daughter was in the hospital.

"At first, no one was aware of this dengue virus until my daughter fell sick and I took her to the Bustamante Hospital for Children. That was when I learnt that dengue is out, as I was there and saw two other children that died from it," she said.

According to her, that was her daughter's first time being in a hospital. She believes that the health ministry is doing a poor job of raising awareness about dengue haemorrhagic fever.

"They (Government) are not doing enough, because if they were doing what is necessary, we wouldn't have to hear of so many deaths with our babies," she said.

* Five children have died from dengue this month at Bustamante Hospital for Children.