More than 200 people have died from dengue in Peru, with hospitals overwhelmed and struggling to treat patients, as the country battles its worst-ever outbreak of the disease.
Roughly 130,000 people have caught the virus across the country so far this year, including 37,000 children. The epidemic surpasses the previous record set in 2017, when close to 70,000 cases were confirmed, according to the government.
The northwestern region of Piura has been the worst hit. Authorities there have been forced to construct emergency field wards in tents on sports pitches to deal with a deluge of cases, bringing back grim memories of the country’s Covid crisis and leading to media reports of “overwhelmed” health facilities.
“The Peru-Korea Santa Rosa Friendship Hospital, one of the most important in the entire region, collapsed and had to care for the sick in motorcycle taxis, vehicles, benches, and wheelchairs; that is, in the corridors and also on the street,” journalists from Ojo Publico wrote in late May. Dengue, a virus spread by the stripy Aedes Aegypti mosquito, is nicknamed “breakbone fever” because of the severe muscle pain it can cause. Other symptoms include a fever, patchy red rash, nausea and headache.
While not as lethal as other infectious diseases – around 20 per cent of people develop severe dengue, and up to 2.5 per cent of this cohort die – it is an extremely unpleasant virus that puts a huge strain on health systems and exacts a heavy economic burden on countries as patients are unable to work.
“I think people in the UK don’t realise how bad dengue hits endemic countries,” Dr Neelika Malavige, who is based in Sri Lanka and is head of scientific affairs and the dengue programme at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, recently told the Telegraph.
“The sort of rates of hospitalisation Britain saw with delta, with omicron – we see that on a seasonal basis with dengue. Our hospital systems are completely overwhelmed and sometimes we have to restrict access during the dengue season, which coincides with monsoon season.”
In Peru, which expanded a dengue health emergency to cover 20 of the country’s 25 regions last month, health authorities have linked the outbreak to the El Niño weather pattern.
The rising ocean temperatures have triggered a deluge of rain and flooding – on Thursday, a two-month “state of emergency” was declared in 18 of the country’s 24 regions to allow swift official action for “imminent danger from heavy rainfall” this year and next. The flooding has also created the perfect conditions for dengue-carrying mosquitoes to thrive. Significant population growth, including in Piura, and poor sanitation infrastructure has provided a fertile breeding ground for the city-loving mosquitos in Peru’s poorer urban neighbourhoods.
The country’s hospitals are also underfunded – the government spends less on its public health system than any of Latin America’s other major economies – leaving health workers with fewer resources to respond. Experts have warned that the government has failed to rectify this, despite the country’s devastating experience during the Covid pandemic.
“If the temporary hospital beds had been left and at least part of the staff hired for the Covid-19 emergency had been kept, now the situation would not be so serious,” Dr Julio Barrena Dioses, secretary of the board of directors at the Medical College of Piura, told OjoPúblico. “The problem is that in every emergency temporary solutions are thought of.”
Any opinions, views and beliefs represented in this article are personal and belong solely to the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the opinion, views and beliefs of the organisation and employees of New Image™ International
Bridging The Gap In Nutrition
Children's Immunity
Colostrum – The Key To Health
Colostrum - How might it benefit my health
Bovine Colostrum
Building Strong Immunity
Colostrum and Sport
English 
Ms 
