BOGOTA (AlertNet) - Nearly 50 cities in Brazil face possible dengue outbreaks as increasing temperatures and rainfall during the coming summer months provide a fertile environment for the mosquito-borne disease, the health minister has said.
Brazil’s summer season, which begins later this month, threatens to increase the risk of dengue outbreaks across the country, including the tourist cities of Recife, Belen, San Luis and Aracaju, Brazil’s health minister, Alexandre Padilha said.
“We will need to work very hard in coming weeks because if nothing is done the tendency indicates we will have a major infection outbreak in the coming months,” MercoPress press quoted Padilha as saying during a press conference earlier this week.
Health ministry officials said simple measures can help prevent the spread of dengue.
“There’s no need to buy anything at all nor have sophisticated technology. There are simple things that any family can implement such as preventing accumulation of garbage or rainfall”, MercoPress quoted health official Jarbas Barbosa as saying.
Dengue causes flu-like symptoms such as fever, headaches and muscle and joint pains. It can also take on a hemorrhagic form, causing sudden death through internal bleeding. This is no vaccine against the disease.
Hundreds of thousands of dengue cases are reported every year in Brazil.
During the first half of this year, 310 people died from dengue in Brazil, a decrease of 44 percent compared to the same period last year, according to government figures.
Earlier this year, Brazil announced it would allocate $640 million to combat dengue across the country.
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