MIAMI, United States.- The Cuban Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) reported this Tuesday that the country is on alert for dengue, and that in 2022 the highest number of outbreaks in the last 15 years has been registered.
According to a note from the state Cuban News Agency (ACN), the alert was issued especially in four provinces of the island: Havana, Camagüey, Las Tunas and Holguín.
As explained by Dr. Madelaine Rivera Sánchez, national director of Surveillance and Anti-Vector Control, the foci of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito are located as follows: Havana (16.5%), Holguín (13.5%), Santiago de Cuba (13%) and Camagüey (11.8%), and 17 municipalities contribute 60.8% of the country’s focus.
Although the government did not offer the real numbers of infections and patients, the outbreaks in this 2022 grew by 21.7 percent (%) in relation to the same period in 2021.
The Cuban authorities hold the population responsible for solving the problem, and call for care for the water reservoirs where the mosquito finds its means of reproduction. Precisely in such containers, said the official, 83% of the country’s outbreaks are located.
Likewise, Rivera Sánchez explained that 90% of the vector control inspectors have been completed, which allows them to reach a greater number of homes, although he clarified that, unlike the fumigation campaigns of other years, now only This technique is applied in homes where a febrile case or a positive dengue fever is reported.
Added to the alert from the four Cuban provinces is the fear that another 71 municipalities are at risk. According to Rivera Sánchez, the government also reinforces the focal treatment with abatement and the destruction of deposits.
However, despite the alert, the official said that “due to the current situation in the country with fuel, there will be no intensive spraying as provided for in the usual protocol, but work will be done to detect possible sources.”
The situation is “complex,” the doctor pointed out, however, she assures that in Cuba one cannot speak of an epidemic and “from temporary groups in the provinces, the situation of the disease and mosquito infestation is constantly analyzed.”
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