The Ministry of Public Health of Cuba (Minsap) reported this Friday that the new cases of dengue and chikungunya detected a day before totaled 1,023, in the midst of the current combined epidemic of both arboviruses.
The director of Environmental Health of the Minsap, Susana Suárez, detailed on television that on the previous day they diagnosed 627 chikungunya infections for a total of 40,801.
In the case of dengue, 396 tests performed were positive, said the specialist, who did not offer the total for this disease.
Suárez explained that the total number of serious patients amounted to 64 — 14 less than the previous day — and 12 are in critical condition — one less than the previous day — “of which 11 are under one year old.”
Recently, Cuban health authorities indicated that the groups that present the most serious symptoms of chikungunya are infants up to one year old, children between 10 and 15 years old, and older people.
Minors form a risk group in the dengue and chikungunya epidemic that plagues Cuba
“Very explosive” outbreaks
The Minsap has so far confirmed 33 deaths—21 of them minors—from both diseases in the midst of the current epidemic.
In this regard, researcher at the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine María Eugenia Toledo explained this Thursday that chikungunya outbreaks tend to be “very explosive” and acknowledged that it cannot be predicted when the epidemic wave will end.
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 June and that infections had skyrocketed in September and October.
The epidemic has found fertile ground in Cuba to spread due to the serious economic crisis that the country is suffering, which 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 lack of medicines.
