Cuba warns population of high presence of mosquitoes that transmit dengue

Cuban health authorities warned on Thursday about the high rate of entry of mosquitoes that transmit dengue, zika and chikunguya to the population, and called for action to control it.

“In 2021, the highest number of (mosquito) outbreaks were recorded in the last 15 years. ” Especially in the provinces with the largest population, such as Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Camagui, Matanzas and Villa Clara, the Ministry of Public Health said in a statement.

The agency said that the American continent has registered “high rates of infection of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus” and, consequently, there has been an increase in the transmission of dengue fever and other viruses such as Chikungunya and Zika.

During 2021, 9 Cuban provinces were affected by dengue, but in the midst of a complex epidemiological situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, “as of September, cases have decreased by 29.3%,” he said.

The country has been exempted from Zika since 2019 and Chikungunya from 2017.

For more than 15 years, health officials have been developing a campaign to control the banned Aedes mosquito population in the last two years due to containment measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already been controlled on the Caribbean island.

The authorities assure that the greatest number of outbreaks was detected in water tanks, especially those that “are found in many homes” and explained the measures in this regard.

CB/LP/RU