El Salvador Reports Soaring Dengue
Infections
By Rita Isaac
San Salvador - El Salvador health authorities
have reported 2,431 cases of classic dengue
in the first eight months of the year, about
153 percent more than the same period last
year, according to news reaching here on
Thursday.
There were 45 cases of the deadlier
hemorrhagic dengue variant,18 more than the
same period last year. The increase was
“considerable” compared with 2008, but close
to the levels in 2006,the Health Ministry’s
coordinator of epidemiology, Lilian Cruz,
told media in San Salvador, capital of the
country.
Carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito which
breeds in stagnant water, and with no known
cure, dengue causes severe pain in bones,
muscles and joints, as well as headaches,
fever and rash.
Currently, there are four types of this
virus circulating in El Salvador, while there
were only two in 2007 and 2008, when levels
of infection were comparatively low.
World Health Organization studies indicate
that patients are more likely to be infected
with hemorrhagic dengue, the deadliest
variant of the disease, when they are twice
infected by the disease, with a strain the
body has not fought before.
Hemorrhagic dengue kills around 20 percent
of its infections if it goes untreated,
according to the studies.
El Salvador already reported three dengue
deaths: a 19-year-oldman, and two new-born
babies.
In order to alert the public about the
seriousness of the disease, the country’s
Health Ministry has designated Aug. 26 as
its national anti-dengue day.
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