Dengue cases have broken out in Latin America

Latin America and the Caribbean should expect the worst dengue season on record, with global warming and the El Niño climate phenomenon fueling the epidemic, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned on Thursday. Less than three months into 2024, health officials in the region have already reported more than 3.5 million cases and a thousand deaths due to the virus, which is spread through the bites of infected mosquitoes.

“This is cause for concern as it represents more than three times the number of cases reported on the same date in 2023, a record year with more than 4.5 million cases”, Jerbas Barbosa, director of PAHO, the regional branch of the World Health Organization (WHO), underlined in a press conference. The year will be 2024 “Americas May Have Worst Dengue Season on Record”he added.

Dengue is a viral disease that causes high fever, in rare cases, progressing to a more severe form and causing bleeding. Death is very rare – about 0.01% of all cases. Widespread in warm countries, the virus is found mainly in urban and semi-urban areas and causes 100 to 400 million infections per year according to the WHO. The increase in the number of infections is observed in all countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, but especially in three countries of the Southern Cone: Brazil (81%), followed by Paraguay (6%) and Argentina (3.4%), which represent 92% of all cases and 87% of deaths. doing.