Guatemala Worries of Dengue Increase
Health authorities in Guatemala expressed concern Tuesday at the rapid increase in the cases of dengue fever and the latent risk of breakouts of epidemics in 11 departments of the country.

According to Mario Gudiel, director of the National Epidemiology Center, in one year they have already registered 1,402 people infected with the disease, two of them hemorrhagic type that took the life of an eight-month-old girl.

Gudiel said the increase of the disease concerns authorities because the rainy season is coming, a time when mosquitoes responsible for transmitting the disease - proliferate, and there are already 20 percent more cases than in the same period last year.

The specialist said that the mosquito vector reproduces in deposits of clean water, usually in urban areas and near houses.

The Guatemala Public Health Ministry began a campaign to remove old tires and fumigate in places of high risk to eliminate the mosquitoes and the larvae.

The largest number of dengue cases has been reported in the departments of Escuintla, Izabal, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, Quiche, Quetzaltenango, Suchitepequez, Retalhuleu, Santa Rosa, Jutiapa and Jalapa.

The disease causes high fever, headache and articulation pain, nausea and eruption in the skin, but in its more dangerous variety, causes bleeding in several organs and can cause death.