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Dengue on the Rise Again / Dengue Avance de Nuevo
f you've ever had dengue before, you can testify to its agony. My wife got it from a mosquito while we lived in Santo Domingo in the late 1990s, and for a week she experienced fiery pain in every joint and muscle, a steady headache and fever that will not respond to any medicines. She just had to suffer through "breakbone fever" (one of its nicknames) until it passed.
She was lucky. The more virulent form, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) can kill you.
Between 2001 and 2006, dengue and DHF is documented as killing 983 people in the Americas and inflected 3.4 million (including 79,644 cases of DHF). For 2007, up through the end of September, there have been 630,356 dengue cases reported, 12,147 of which are DHF, with 183 reported deaths.
Dengue & DHF Cases in Mexico & Central America, as of Sept. 2007 (click to enlarge)That's only the cases properly diagnosed and reported. The real numbers may be higher.
For several years after the turn of the century, reported dengue and DHF cases dropped rapidly in LAC, leading some to hope it was under control. But in the last three years, the reported cases have risen steadily, and perhaps more important, the geographic spread of the disease has increased (click on map/chart to view larger version).
Reporting to this year's Pan American Sanitary Conference (CSP), the ministerial governing body for the Pan American health Organization (PAHO), now underway, PAHO's chief of Sanitary Vigilance, characterized dengue/DHF as "without a doubt one of the biggest threats facing the region."
Dengue & DHF Cases Reported in Caribbean, as of Sept. 2007 (click to enlarge)60% of the dengue cases in the Americas come from the so-called Southern Cone sub-region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay), with Brazil reporting the most cases (94% of the total for the Cono Sur). They are followed by the Andean subregion (particularly Colombia and Venezuela) with 19%.
A better indicator of the risk may be the incidence rate, or number of cases per 100,000 people, since raw data may present a picture skewed by the big differences in population among the LAC nations. In 2007, this statistic is 1,732 for French Guiana, 899 for Guadalupe, 585 for Costa Rica, 499 for Paraguay, 450 for Martinique, 361 for Honduras and 318 for Bolivia.
The Andean subregion has reported 5,821 DHF cases this year (mostly in Colombia and Venezuela ? Colombia is the top DHF country this year), 48% of the regional total. They are followed by the Central America and Mexico sub-region (5,212 cases, or 42.9% of the regional total). In the latter, most of the cases are in Costa Rica, Honduras and Mexico.
Dengue & DHF Cases Reported in South America, as of Sept. 2007 (click to enlarge)PAHO and the region's health ministries have been taking steps to combat dengue/DHF, they have not sufficed, In the aforementioned report to the CSP, PAHO asked all to step up their efforts. PAHO particularly complains about the "instability and rotation" of the trained human resources needed to combat the disease properly, particularly in key areas such as entomology and vector control. PAHO asked for strategy to ensure that health officials have steady supplies of both the funds and personnel needed to do the job.
They also suggested more efforts to control littering and improper disposal of scrap tires, plastic containers and open-air trash dumps, all of which are good breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carry the four forms of virus that cause dengue and DHF.
In a recent "editorial," though, PAHO Director Dr. Mirta Roses warns that the dengue/DHF situation in LAC is "complex" and not easy to solve in short order, but that the foundation exists for actions that can halt and reverse its spread if PAHO and health officials act soon and decisively.
f you've ever had dengue before, you can testify to its agony. My wife got it from a mosquito while we lived in Santo Domingo in the late 1990s, and for a week she experienced fiery pain in every joint and muscle, a steady headache and fever that will not respond to any medicines. She just had to suffer through "breakbone fever" (one of its nicknames) until it passed.
She was lucky. The more virulent form, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) can kill you.
Between 2001 and 2006, dengue and DHF is documented as killing 983 people in the Americas and inflected 3.4 million (including 79,644 cases of DHF). For 2007, up through the end of September, there have been 630,356 dengue cases reported, 12,147 of which are DHF, with 183 reported deaths.
Dengue & DHF Cases in Mexico & Central America, as of Sept. 2007 (click to enlarge)That's only the cases properly diagnosed and reported. The real numbers may be higher.
For several years after the turn of the century, reported dengue and DHF cases dropped rapidly in LAC, leading some to hope it was under control. But in the last three years, the reported cases have risen steadily, and perhaps more important, the geographic spread of the disease has increased (click on map/chart to view larger version).
Reporting to this year's Pan American Sanitary Conference (CSP), the ministerial governing body for the Pan American health Organization (PAHO), now underway, PAHO's chief of Sanitary Vigilance, characterized dengue/DHF as "without a doubt one of the biggest threats facing the region."
Dengue & DHF Cases Reported in Caribbean, as of Sept. 2007 (click to enlarge)60% of the dengue cases in the Americas come from the so-called Southern Cone sub-region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay), with Brazil reporting the most cases (94% of the total for the Cono Sur). They are followed by the Andean subregion (particularly Colombia and Venezuela) with 19%.
A better indicator of the risk may be the incidence rate, or number of cases per 100,000 people, since raw data may present a picture skewed by the big differences in population among the LAC nations. In 2007, this statistic is 1,732 for French Guiana, 899 for Guadalupe, 585 for Costa Rica, 499 for Paraguay, 450 for Martinique, 361 for Honduras and 318 for Bolivia.
The Andean subregion has reported 5,821 DHF cases this year (mostly in Colombia and Venezuela ? Colombia is the top DHF country this year), 48% of the regional total. They are followed by the Central America and Mexico sub-region (5,212 cases, or 42.9% of the regional total). In the latter, most of the cases are in Costa Rica, Honduras and Mexico.
Dengue & DHF Cases Reported in South America, as of Sept. 2007 (click to enlarge)PAHO and the region's health ministries have been taking steps to combat dengue/DHF, they have not sufficed, In the aforementioned report to the CSP, PAHO asked all to step up their efforts. PAHO particularly complains about the "instability and rotation" of the trained human resources needed to combat the disease properly, particularly in key areas such as entomology and vector control. PAHO asked for strategy to ensure that health officials have steady supplies of both the funds and personnel needed to do the job.
They also suggested more efforts to control littering and improper disposal of scrap tires, plastic containers and open-air trash dumps, all of which are good breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carry the four forms of virus that cause dengue and DHF.
In a recent "editorial," though, PAHO Director Dr. Mirta Roses warns that the dengue/DHF situation in LAC is "complex" and not easy to solve in short order, but that the foundation exists for actions that can halt and reverse its spread if PAHO and health officials act soon and decisively.