The Cuban health authorities affirmed this Monday that the epidemic of chikungunya and dengue affecting the island aims to have “a very positive course” in the coming weeks, “towards control” of both arboviruses.
The Vice Minister of Public Health, Carilda Peña, assured in statements to national television that last was the eighth consecutive week with declining figures in the key variable, new cases of non-specific fever symptoms (high fever is the first symptom of the two diseases).
“The situation is favorable for both arboviruses,” he assured.
The forecasts point to new cases remaining stable or decreasing in the coming weeks “if we do what needs to be done,” said the vice minister without specifying what those tasks are.
The epidemiological channel still runs through an epidemic zone, he explained, but it could fall to the alarm zone—the immediately lower stage—in a few weeks.
The official figures
Peña put the number of new cases of non-specific febrile syndrome detected in the entire previous week at 16,214 and also said that the incidence rate of dengue fever stood at 10.49 per 100,000 inhabitants in that period of time, compared to 15.25 the previous week.
The accumulated number of chikungunya cases stood at 48,223 infected, according to the vice minister, who did not provide the number of dengue cases.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which bases its records on official figures, indicated that so far this year and until the second week of December, Cuba had accumulated 28,850 cases of dengue and 17 deaths from this disease.
The vice minister did not speak of deaths, although the latest official figure – from last Friday – raised the number of fatalities from the double epidemic to 55. About two thirds of the dead are minors.
The Cuban Government recognized for the first time on November 12 that the country was suffering from a chikungunya and dengue epidemic, despite the fact that the first cases were diagnosed in July and that infections had skyrocketed in September and October.
Two and a half weeks before recognizing the epidemic, the Cuban Government made an international request for help for Hurricane Melissa, which included enormous quantities of chemicals to combat the mosquito, the vector of transmission of dengue and chikungunya.
The epidemic has found fertile ground in Cuba to spread due, among other causes, to the serious economic crisis that is weighing down the country.
This situation limits the capacity for prevention -mainly through massive fumigation against mosquitoes-, control -with tests to confirm the type of disease- and care for the sick, due to a lack of medicines and other health supplies.
