‘Imminent’ Dengue Outbreak In Peru Declares Health Emergency

(CTN News) – A heatwave and heavy rains have caused a spike in dengue fever cases in Peru and across most of the country, prompting officials to declare a health emergency across most of the country on Monday.

In the South American nation, 32 people have died due to the virus so far this year, according to Health Minister Cesar Vasquez, who told reporters on Monday.

As a result of the rapid increase in cases, Vasquez said that 24,981 cases of the disease were reported over the previous seven weeks, bringing the total number of cases to 31,300.

A motion to declare a health emergency in Peru was approved by the cabinet on Monday, Vasquez told journalists, hours after declaring a dengue outbreak to be “imminent” in his earlier remarks.

Vasquez said in an earlier interview on local radio station RPP that 20 regions (out of 25) will be declared in a health emergency due to dengue in the immediate future.

It is hoped that the declaration will boost the resources available to responders in the affected areas.

There are several symptoms associated with dengue infection, which is mainly transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito. The symptoms include fever, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and body aches.

A majority of the cases that have been seen in Peru so far have been in the north, where hospitals are already overwhelmed with patients.

In the past few years, Vasquez said that climate change has “overtaken” the nation’s typical response to dengue virus outbreaks.

He stated that the weather conditions have created the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes to reproduce more quickly and to become a more frequent vector of the disease because of this.

As per official records, in Peru, 428 people died of dengue last year, and 269,216 people were infected with the disease.

The Andean nation has been suffering from a series of high temperatures and heavy rains over the past two decades due to El Nino’s environmental effects, which have warmed the seas off Peru’s coast as a result of the weather phenomenon.

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