The country accumulates 55 deaths from dengue and chikungunya, also according to official data.
MIAMI, United States. – Cuba reached this Monday with an official accumulated of 50,101 cases of chikungunya since July and 55 deaths due to the current arbovirus epidemic, according to official data from the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) of the Island.
In your update this Monday on the program Good morningthe vice minister of MINSAP Carilda Peña García stated that “until the end of the week [pasada]”The country had accumulated 50,101 cases of chikungunya, of which 48,198 were registered as clinical suspicion and 1,903 as confirmed.
The official assured that, compared to the previous week, a decrease of 955 cases was reported and that the weekly incidence rate fell from 29.76 to 19.73, a decrease that the MINSAP attributes to the control strategy and the anti-vector campaign.
However, the very structure of the official data once again highlights a sensitive point: the majority of infections counted as chikungunya are not confirmed by laboratory. In a previous MINSAP report, published on December 1 and reproduced by the state health site Infomedthe authorities defended that, in an epidemic context, clinical-epidemiological cases are considered positive even if they do not have PCR: “We have explained several times that PCR is the confirmatory test, but in an epidemic situation like we have in the country, cases with clinical epidemiological suspicions… are cases that we also consider positive.”
This approach — which can be operational for rapid surveillance — also reduces the external verifiability of the real size of the outbreak and makes it difficult to contrast, with laboratory evidence, the relative weight of each virus (dengue, chikungunya or others) in a population that reports similar febrile symptoms.
Deaths from arboviruses: from 33 to 55 in less than three weeks
Regarding mortality, the MINSAP confirmed officially on December 1 the existence of 33 deaths from arbovirus in the country, in a balance that attributed 12 deaths to dengue (seven under 18 years of age) and 21 to chikungunya (14 under 18 years of age), according to what was reported by the vice minister on state television.
On December 19, the total number of recognized deaths rose to 55, after the confirmation of three new deaths from chikungunya. In that updateit was indicated that 37 of the 55 died from complications associated with chikungunya and the rest from dengue.
The evolution of these figures raises relevant questions about the public monitoring of the epidemic: the MINSAP, for example, did not specify the range of dates to which these deaths corresponded, a key data to evaluate lethality and trend.
In this Monday’s appearance, the vice minister reported no new deaths, while describing a reduction in intensive care admissions and the volume of hospitalized patients with febrile syndrome, in a context in which the Government insists that the country is approaching an “alarm zone” and leaving the epidemic peak behind.
Even with this recent improvement, the general picture continues to be marked by national transmission and a strained health response. In strictly numerical terms, the accumulated 50,101 cases of chikungunya recognized at the end of December – with only 1,903 confirmed – and the official total of 55 deaths from dengue and chikungunya until December 19 describe a year in which the State ended up admitting, late and in a staggered manner, the deadly impact and magnitude of the outbreak.
