By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer
Fri Mar 30, 4:14 PM ET
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 to spray pesticides and remove
garbage and standing water where mosquitoes breed ahead of the peak
Easter Week vacation season.
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.
Like a poster child for the downside of humanity's impact on the
planet, 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 including the
many thousands of Americans expected for spring break this year
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
different 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.
"We are working intensively, both the federal and state
governments, on (these) three sites that we want to keep under
control, so that it doesn't become a risk for tourists," said Pablo
Kuri, head of Mexico's National Center for Epidemiology and Disease
Control.
The Canadian Embassy in Mexico City issued an alert about dengue
after five Canadians were sickened in Puerto Vallarta earlier this
year. Acapulco, a city of 700,000, has documented 549 cases of
classic and hemorrhagic dengue in the first two months of 2007, up
from just 86 for the same period last year.
Dengue is mostly a problem in tropical slums, where trash
collection and sanitation are not as good as in tourist
areas.
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, Kuri said. 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.
Dengue has been found along the U.S.-Mexico border, where 151
classic and 46 hemorrhagic cases were recorded last year in the
Gulf state of Tamaulipas, south of Texas.
Historically, the United States hasn't been immune from dengue a
1922 outbreak in Texas infected a half-million people. And
according to the CDC, dengue returned to southern Texas in 1980
after a 35-year absence. Occasional cases since then have included
hemorrhagic dengue.
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.
The global solution to dengue outbreaks is mosquito control, and
faltering eradication efforts, together with climate change,
probably share blame for dengue's rise in the Americas, Kuri
said.
A successful eradication program in Latin America in the 1960s sent
the disease into remission, but economic crises and government
downsizing sapped those efforts over the next two decades. Some
countries reported severe outbreaks in the 1980s, and by the 1990s,
dengue began a regional resurgence.
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. The government sent
soldiers into the streets in an emergency campaign to spray
insecticides and clean up stagnant water.
At least 24 people died of hemorrhagic dengue in the Dominican
Republic last year.
"It's part of globalization," Kuri said. "Someone can be in
Paraguay, where there is a big outbreak, with type-one virus, and
six hours later be in Mexico."
I wonder how serious their dengue fever problem will be in the near
future 