A hundred people have died this year from a dengue outbreak in Central America, where the most affected country is Guatemala, with half of the deaths, health officials reported this Friday.
In Guatemala, 50 people have died from dengue and more than 43,000 people have contracted the disease, almost six times more than in the same period last year, according to a report from the Ministry of Health.
In Honduras, 29 deaths and about 60,000 cases are reported, while Panama counts 12 deaths and more than 5,700 cases, of which 40 are severe, according to official figures.
In El Salvador, three children died of dengue and there are about 3,700 suspected cases. In Costa Rica, no deaths are reported, but there are more than 11,000 confirmed cases of the disease. Nicaragua reported only 196 cases, with no deaths.
Dengue is an endemic disease in tropical zones that causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, and in the most severe cases, hemorrhages that can cause death.
Due to the outbreak, some countries in the region have declared a state of emergency to address the proliferation of the “Aedes aegypti” mosquito, which transmits the disease.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned in April 2023 that dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases are now spreading much more and farther from their usual areas due to the effects of climate change.
