At least 20 people have died, and more than 30,000 have been infected by a wave of dengue in Central America, where Guatemala and Panama have the highest death toll this year.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned last week that Latin America and the Caribbean will experience their “worst dengue season,” accumulating 3.5 million cases and more than 1,000 deaths this year.
The most affected in the Central American region is Guatemala, with nine deaths and about 10,200 cases, including 38 severe cases, according to data from the Ministry of Health. Last year, 118 people died in Guatemala, and 72,000 were infected by this disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
“A piece of data that we have that is a bit alarming is the amount of accumulated dengue […], this is closely related to climate change,” said the Guatemalan Minister of Health, Óscar Cordón, this week.
In Panama, according to official information, seven people have died, and more than 3,200 cases have been recorded, of which 16 are severe. In all of 2023, there were 18 deaths and more than 16,500 infected in this country.
“It is important to keep environments clean and thus avoid the increase of mosquito breeding sites,” warned the Ministry of Health of Panama. In Honduras, there have been four deaths, and 8,000 cases have been registered, according to official data.
“There has been an increase from one week to another from an average of 100 cases [to an average] of 800 to 900 and more,” warned the spokesperson for the Honduran Ministry of Health, Miguel Osorio.
In Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica, there are officially no dengue deaths this year. Managua reports 1,545 cases, but there are another 17,300 under investigation. In El Salvador, there were more than 1,100 people affected by dengue. Last year there were 6,000. Costa Rica reports 6,000 cases.
It is “a cause for concern since it represents three times more cases than those reported for this same date in 2023, a record year with more than 4.5 million cases reported in the region,” said PAHO director Jarbas Barbosa last week.
“This will probably be the worst dengue season that has been had in America,” he warned.
