May 12, 2023, 4:00 AM
May 12, 2023, 4:00 AM
With sanitary brigades that fumigate house to house, Peru seeks to eradicate the mosquito that transmits dengue in an attempt to control an outbreak of this endemic disease that leaves 79 dead and 73,159 infections so far this year, the highest number since 2017.
From early hours thousands of residents of the district of San Juan de Lurigancho, the most populous in Lima with 1.5 million inhabitants, forcibly abandoned their homes to allow fumigation.
“We are presenting a outbreak of dengue at the national level assured the director general of Salud Lima Centro, Martín Gutiérrez.
“We are looking for the larva (of the dengue-transmitting mosquito) and fumigating house to house to combat the outbreak,” he added.
According to the Ministry of Health, so far this year, 73,159 cases, 79 deaths and 671 hospitalized have been reported.
The Minister of Health, Rosa Gutiérrez, assured that the figure is the highest since 2017, when there were 68,290 thousand cases and 89 deaths after the El Niño climatic phenomenon.
“This regrowth is related to a weather factor,” stressed the minister.
Departments of northern Peru and the Amazon, where there were intense rains between February and April, are the most affected by the disease, which is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
The brigadistas use a powerful insecticide based on organic phosphates known as malathion, according to the health authorities.
“It has never been seen like this so strong that almost every neighborhood (in Lima) is spreading the disease,” 41-year-old Érika Toribio told AFP, who waited on the street carrying her baby while her home was fumigated.
“Dengue is killing a lot of people. First it was the covid, we were saved from the covid, now dengue comes,” said 26-year-old shopkeeper Leslie Llontop.
dengue is a disease endemic to tropical areas which causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain and, in the most serious cases, bleeding that can cause death.
It was detected in Peru for the first time in 1984, and has since become an endemic disease.
