©Reuters. Biologist and director of CeNDIE-ANLIS (National Center for Diagnostics and Research in Endemic – Epidemics) Malbran, Mariana Manteca Acosta, puts an Aedes a Egypti mosquito inside a test tube, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 13, 2024. REUTERS/Agustin M
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By Horacio Soria, Miguel Lo Bianco and Javier Corbalan
BUENOS AIRES/SALTA, Argentina (Reuters) – A major outbreak of dengue fever in Argentina, a mosquito-borne disease that can be fatal, is on track to surpass previous records, reflecting broader concern in South America, where the climate hotter and wetter has led to a surge in cases.
More than 120,000 cases have been recorded in Argentina so far in the 2023/24 season, most of them in the last two months. This puts it well ahead of the previous season, already the worst on record.
“We are experiencing the largest dengue epidemic in Argentina,” said Mariana Manteca Acosta, director of the Malbran Institute and infectious disease specialist. “There are 200% more cases than at the same time last year.”
Symptoms of dengue include high fever, headache, vomiting, skin rashes, and muscle and joint pain that can be so severe that the disease has been called “bone-breaking” fever. In some cases it can cause a more severe hemorrhagic fever, resulting in bleeding that can lead to death.
There have been 79 deaths so far this season in Argentina, the latest government data shows.
Neighboring Brazil is also facing a surge in cases, with dengue spreading to regions where it had not previously been found.
Most cases usually occur during the Southern Hemisphere’s late summer months, February to May, when the weather is often hot and humid. But this year, a higher number of cases were observed earlier in the season.
In the first ten weeks of the calendar year there were around 103,000 cases of dengue, government data show, more than ten times the 8,343 cases recorded in the same period last year, when the main peak occurred later in April.
Valeria Medina, 36, being treated for dengue at a hospital in Argentina’s northwestern province of Salta, said there wasn’t enough awareness of the disease and that some people had difficulty getting diagnosed and treated.
“It’s a disease that doesn’t get much attention, but it’s bad,” Medina said.
Infectious disease specialist Eduardo Lopez, of the Ricardo Gutierrez hospital in Buenos Aires, said this season will almost certainly surpass last year’s.
“With the projections as they are, we will surpass last year,” he said. “We still have all of April, the rest of March and at least 15 days of May. So we will exceed 130 thousand cases. This year will be a record.”
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) last month issued a warning about rising cases across the region, after last year marked the highest number of cases in decades.