The Cuban Government confirmed this Monday 33 deaths from chikungunya and dengue, 21 of them minors, on the first occasion in which deaths due to the disease were reported. epidemic of these arboviruses that the country suffers.
The Vice Minister of Health, Carilda Peña, explained on national television that 21 people died from chikungunya (14 of them minors) and 12 died from dengue (with 7 minors).
Peña confirmed that, except for Matanzas and the Isle of Youth, the rest of the provinces are in a fever epidemic zone, with a sustained increase in several territories, while dengue and chikungunya remain active in the 14 provinces, 43 municipalities and 51 health areas.
In the last week, 5,717 new cases of chikungunya were reported, the majority due to clinical-epidemiological suspicion, which brings the cumulative total to 38,938 (37,678 suspected and 1,260 confirmed by PCR). Dengue remains throughout the country without exception.
The vice minister explained that, given the epidemic situation, cases with clear symptoms are considered positive even if they do not have confirmatory PCR, because the definitive test is reserved for specific situations.
The Aedes aegypti infestation index rose to 0.89, with Camagüey, Pinar del Río, Santiago de Cuba, Sancti Spíritus and Havana as the provinces with the highest values. However, adulticidal treatment improved from 79% to 90% of what was planned.
During a meeting over the weekend, the cuban government analyzed, among other matters, the epidemiological situation. There it was stated that pregnant women, single elderly people and children under three years of age are cared for “in a differentiated manner.” In the capital, 148 adults, 112 full-term pregnant women, and 162 small children are hospitalized.
Likewise, it was reported that there are six weeks of “intensive fumigation with adulticidal treatment,” with “a universe of 303,600 homes,” although it was not clarified how many of those homes were actually fumigated in the last week.
The epidemic, a term used for the first time by the Cuban Government on November 12 to characterize the current outbreak of these two diseases, found fertile ground in Cuba to spread months after the first cases were detected last July in Matanzas.
In recent days, the Health authorities confirmed that only in November they had already been detected more than 10 thousand cases of chikungunyawith an average of more than 500 daily cases, although the most recent official reports exceed and even almost double that figure.
Cuba’s current economic crisis limits prevention capacity, mainly through massive fumigation against mosquitoes. Also control actions, the application of tests to confirm the type of disease and care for the sick.
In this scenario, the Health authorities admit that the official figures are an under-report, because a good number of patients do not go to hospitals. Therefore, the number of real cases is surely higher than those officially reported.
OnCuba/EFE.
