MEXICO CITY – The deadly hemorrhagic form of dengue fever is increasing dramatically in Mexico, and experts predict a surge throughout Latin America fueled by climate change, migration and faltering mosquito-eradication efforts.
Overall dengue cases have increased by more than 600 percent in Mexico since 2001, and worried officials are sending special teams to tourist resorts ahead of the peak Easter Week vacation season to spray pesticides and remove garbage and standing water where mosquitoes breed.
Even classic dengue – known as “bonebreak fever” – can cause severe flu-like symptoms, excruciating joint pain, high fever, nausea and rashes.
More alarming is that a deadly hemorrhagic form of the disease, which adds internal and external bleeding to the symptoms, is becoming more common. It accounts for one in four cases in Mexico, compared with one in 50 seven years ago, according to Mexico’s Public Health Department.
While hemorrhagic dengue is increasing around the developing world, the problem is most dramatic in the Americas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dengue is driven by longer rainy seasons some blame on climate change, as well as disposable plastic packaging and other trash that collects water. Migrants and tourists carry new strains of the virus across national borders, where mosquitoes can spread the disease.
The CDC says there’s no drug to treat hemorrhagic dengue, but proper treatment, including rest, fluids and pain relief, can reduce death rates to about 1 percent.
Latin America’s hospitals are ill-equipped to handle major outbreaks, and officials say the virus is likely to grow deadlier, in part because tourism and migration are circulating four strains across the region. A person exposed to one strain may develop immunity to that strain – but subsequent exposure to another strain makes it more likely the person will develop the hemorrhagic form.
This dengue spread “is one of the primordial public health problems the country faces,” said Mexico’s Public Health Department, which has sent hundreds of workers to the resorts of Puerto Vallarta, Cancun and Acapulco to try to avert outbreaks ahead of the Easter week vacation.
In January and February, Mexico’s dry season, there were 1,589 cases of both types of dengue nationwide, up 380 percent from the same period in 2006, said Pablo Kuri, head of Mexico’s National Center for Epidemiology and Disease Control. And last year was also bad for dengue: Mexico documented 27,000 infections overall – including 4,477 hemorrhagic cases and 20 deaths – compared with 1,781 cases overall in 2001.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, predicted in March that global warming and climate change would cause an upsurge in dengue. In Mexico, officials say longer rainy seasons already are leading to more cases.
“It used to be seasonal, in the hottest, wettest months, and now in some regions we are seeing it practically all year,” said Joel Navarrete, an epidemiologist with the Mexican Social Security Institute.
Paraguay declared a state of emergency in March after 17 people died of hemorrhagic dengue and an estimated 400,000 were infected with the milder “classic” form of the disease.
At least 24 people died of hemorrhagic dengue in the Dominican Republic last year.
