BajaNomad - Dengue Fever Surges in Latin America

Dengue Fever Surges in Latin America

Bedman - 9-30-2007 at 06:43 PM

Dengue Fever Surges in Latin America
By MICHAEL MELIA, AP
Posted: 2007-09-30 19:32:18
Filed Under: Health News, World News
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Sept. 30) - Dengue fever is spreading across Latin America and the Caribbean in one of the worst outbreaks in decades, causing agonizing joint pain for hundreds of thousands of people and killing nearly 200 so far this year.

The mosquitoes that carry dengue are thriving in expanded urban slums scattered with water-collecting trash and old tires. Experts say dengue is approaching record levels this year as many countries enter their wettest months.

"If we do not slow it down, it will intensify and take a greater social and economic toll on these countries," said Dr. Jose Luis San Martin, head of anti-dengue efforts for the Pan American Health Organization, a regional public health agency.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has posted advisories this year for people visiting Latin American and Caribbean destinations to use mosquito repellant and stay inside screened areas whenever possible.

"The danger is that the doctors at home don't recognize the dengue," said Dr. Wellington Sun, the chief of the CDC's dengue branch in San Juan. "The doctors need to raise their level of suspicion for any traveler who returns with a fever."

Dengue has already damaged the economies of countries across the region by driving away tourists, according to a document prepared for a PAHO conference beginning Monday in Washington.

Some countries have focused mosquito eradication efforts on areas popular with tourists. Mexico sent hundreds of workers to the resorts of Puerto Vallarta, Cancun and Acapulco this year to try to avert outbreaks.

Health ministers from across the region meet at the PAHO conference and San Martin said he will urge them to devote more resources to dengue fever.

The tropical virus was once thought to have been nearly eliminated from Latin America, but it has steadily gained strength since the early 1980s. Now, officials fear it could emerge as a pandemic similar to one that became a leading killer of children in Southeast Asia following World War II.

Officials say the virus is likely to grow deadlier in part because tourism and migration are circulating four different strains across the region. A person exposed to one strain may develop immunity to that strain - but subsequent exposure to another strain makes it more likely the person will develop the hemorrhagic form.

"The main concern is what's happening in the Americas will recapitulate what has happened in Southeast Asia, and we will start seeing more and more severe types of cases of dengue as time progresses," Sun said.

The disease - known as "bonebreak fever" because of the pain - can incapacitate patients for as long as a week with flu-like symptoms. A deadly hemorrhagic form, which also causes internal and external bleeding, accounts for less than 5 percent of cases but has shown signs of growing.

So far this year, 630,356 dengue cases have been reported in the Americas - most in Brazil, Venezuela, or Colombia - with 12,147 cases of hemorrhagic fever and 183 deaths, according to the Pan American Health Organization. With the spread expected to accelerate during the upcoming rainy season in many countries, cases this year could exceed the 1,015,000 reported in 2002, according to San Martin.

In Puerto Rico, where 5,592 suspected cases and three deaths have been reported, some lawmakers called this week for the health secretary to resign.

In the Dominican Republic, which has reported 25 deaths this year, the health department announced Thursday that it would train 2.5 million public school students to encourage parents and neighbors to eliminate standing water.

Researchers have not yet developed a vaccine against dengue and Sun said that for now, the only way to stop the virus is to contain the mosquito population - a task that relies of countless, relentless individual efforts including installing screen doors and making sure mosquitoes are not breeding in garbage.

"It's like telling people to stop smoking," he said. "They may do it for a while, but they don't do it on a consistent basis and without doing that, it's not effective."

While dengue is increasing around the developing world, the problem is most dramatic in the Americas, according to the CDC.

Health officials believe the resurgence of the malaria-like illness is due partly to a premature easing of eradication programs in the 1970s.

Migration and tourism also have carried new strains of the virus across national borders, even into the United States, which had largely wiped out the disease after a 1922 outbreak that infected a half-million people.

Mexico has been struggling with an alarming increase in the deadly hemorrhagic form of dengue, which now accounts for roughly one in four cases. The government has confirmed 3,249 cases of hemorraghic dengue for the year through Sept. 15, up from 1,924 last year.

The CDC says there is no drug to treat hemorrhagic dengue, but proper treatment, including rest, fluids and pain relief, can reduce death rates to about 1 percent.

San Martin said he use the meetings starting Monday to urge enforcement of trash disposal regulations, more investment in mosquito control and new incentives for communities to participate.

"It is a battle of every government, every community and every individual," he said.

Bedman

vandenberg - 9-30-2007 at 06:48 PM

And your point :?:

rts551 - 9-30-2007 at 06:51 PM

Its that dang fever. come on worry about it

dengue

tehag - 9-30-2007 at 06:59 PM

DEET!! Use it! Dengue is not a joke. It is fairly common in Baja.

BajaBruno - 9-30-2007 at 10:11 PM

The little racals are thick at my casita in Centenario. I spray myself every morning and evening with "eau de DEET," light the coils at night (I detest the odor), and I still get bit. They must be coming over the wall, because I have eliminated all the standing water that I have control over. I would fog the neighborhod if I could. I hate them. So far, however, no "broke bone" disease.

Gnome-ad - 9-30-2007 at 10:23 PM

In Todos Santos know two folks who have had it. It's no laughing matter. Can re-occur and become a chronic issue. Our neighbors had standing water in their backyard all last summer and we had no screens yet. It was a nightmare. We paid to have her laundry water, which ran out of a pipe into the backyard, put into our system. Better this year, but still have the pests. That's why on my five things I would bring to Baja (another thread) mosquito repellent was #1 on my list. We use DEET daily, but still get the occasional bite.

Don't worry - just take care - then have fun!

Loreto street / water / sewer problems

djh - 10-1-2007 at 07:34 AM

Is there still standing water and sewage in broken up streets in Loreto ? ?

Amazing.... that in one city there are serious eradication and education / prevention efforts and in another there are open invitations because of poor planning and management.

How's the progress now in Loreto ?

djh

backninedan - 10-1-2007 at 07:56 AM

Progress ?? They do have one two block section almost done, maybe in another month or two. Then they can move on to the next two blocks. I have a bet going that it wouldn't be done before Christmas. I think its a safe bet.

Bedman - 10-1-2007 at 04:08 PM

Vandenberg,

Hmmm... And my point.... ??

I guess I was trying to inform Nomads of a potential problem re: Dengue.

If you feel this was the wrong place to post this information I'll gladly remove it.

I'm kind of New to the Nomad board and don't post 10 times a day.
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rts551

You can choose to ignore it.

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I am disappointed at the responses of a few posters.

Bedman

bajajudy - 10-1-2007 at 04:28 PM

Here the gov has been sending ladies through the neighborhoods for several years. They mark your gate, wall, whatever they can reach with chalk indicating whether they checked your property. I dont know exactly who uses this information but it seems like the bug spray guy comes around afterward, so maybe he pauses by your property if your sign says not inspected. We always welcome them. They look around, ask how many tenacas you have, if they have a top....generally looking for places of standing water.
The bug sprayer came by last week. We were scrambling to get the dogs inside and get the food off of the outdoor stove, windows closed, basically a fire drill.
I am thankful for anything they do to abate the numbers of the little boogers.
I had dengue in the Caribbean years ago and it is a miserable sickness.
...do not take aspirin for the fever in case you have the one named something like hemorageus(please dont hold me to the spelling)

bajajudy - 10-1-2007 at 07:37 PM

DUH
my bad :no:

I havent had a DDT pizza since I was 12 at Myrtle Beach.

edinnopolo - 10-1-2007 at 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bedman
Vandenberg,

Hmmm... And my point.... ??

I guess I was trying to inform Nomads of a potential problem re: Dengue.

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Bedman

Sorry, was too hasty and apologize.
Didn't mean to be so negative.

Must have got up on the wrong side of the bed :biggrin: