Piura: more than 2,000 cases of dengue are reported in the region

Authorities in the Piura region reported that cases of dengue fever are 2 thousand 472, with 5 deaths also reported. This was reported as they carry out a house-to-house discard and prevention campaign in the October 26 district.

The biologist Víctor Valdivieso pointed out that the deceased people, so far this year, had gone to a health facility untimely, so the disease progressed. In addition, they would have had some comorbidity, such as diabetes, hypertension or chronic kidney failure.

Dengue, Zica and Chikungunya are very common diseases in the northern region, during the summer season. For this reason, health personnel from the Victor Raúl facility are coming house to house to carry out discard tests and provide information on prevention. They are joined by staff from the Regional Directorate of Piura and the Municipality of 26 de Octubre.

“We are jointly carrying out the elimination of mosquito breeding, the activity of searching for febrile. We are also carrying out the stage of health education and raising awareness of the population regarding dengue disease,” said the biologist.

In addition, information will be given on the importance of house washing and permanent water change. In addition, the symptomatologies will be explained, which begin with fever, headache, joint pain, muscle pain. And in another stage, mucosal bleeding or abdominal pain may occur.

DENGUE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ALERT

On 16 February, Peru declared an epidemiological alert to a new outbreak of dengue. This caused eight deaths and more than 5,000 infections so far this year, the Ministry of Health reported on Wednesday.

The outbreak was located in almost half of the country and in Lima, where authorities have since started spraying in several areas to prevent the presence of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads dengue, zika and chikungunya.

Dengue is an endemic disease in tropical areas that causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain and, in the most severe cases, bleeding that can lead to death.

“5,218 cases of dengue have been reported (...), including eight deaths,” said the National Center for Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health (Minsa) in a statement, citing data as of the end of the first week of February 2022.

When compared with the cases reported in the same period last year, there was an increase in deaths, despite the fact that infections decreased by more than 50%.

The epidemiological alert consists of a call to health services “to strengthen the system of epidemiological surveillance” and population control. Also educational information campaigns.

During 2021, Peru recorded 39 deaths and 49,274 cases of dengue. In 2020, there were 86 deaths and 46,749 cases of this disease, according to Minsa.

The two years of the covid-19 pandemic reflected a rise in dengue compared to 2019, where the deaths totaled 37 and the infections 15,287.

The pandemic caused disruptions in the care of tropical diseases, such as dengue, which may delay their control or elimination, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned last January.

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