Luis Escobar / La Paz
Yellow fever took the lives of two people in the northern La Paz municipalities of Caranavi and Guanay. The Departmental Health Service (Headquarters) of La Paz carried out a vaccination plan that managed to immunize more than 2,000 people in the two towns. The entity reinforces this immunization campaign at strategic points.
“These two cases of yellow fever were registered in people who entered the place without having the vaccine. One of them came from Potosí, while the second from Oruro”, said the head of Epidemiology of the Sedes La Paz, Miguel Quispe.
According to the professional, yellow fever is an endemic disease and affects these tropical municipalities. “It is circulating and when one enters these areas for work reasons, one is exposed to being bitten by the mosquito that is from the mountains. So the person ends up getting infected with yellow fever,” he said.
The doctor recommended people to be vaccinated against yellow fever before entering these tropical areas and asked them to look for this inoculant 10 days before making the trip so that their body can produce the necessary defenses in case of being bitten by the mosquito. “You cannot enter immediately,” Quispe explained.
Given this fact, the La Paz Headquarters began a vaccination plan for the immediate environment of the two deceased people and everyone with whom they could have contact during their stay in the municipalities of Caranavi and Guanay. To date, the brigades have already placed more than 2,000 applied doses.
To prevent the spread of the disease, the department’s health entity reinforced vaccination against this disease and installed immunization points at the Minasa Terminal, the main stopover point for entering populations from tropical areas. “In the same place where we have installed a vaccination point against covid, we also apply the yellow fever vaccine,” added Quispe.
The Headquarters -also- has another immunization point at the La Paz Bus Terminal for people who travel to other tropical regions such as Santa Cruz, Beni and others.
What is yellow fever?
Yellow fever is an acute, hemorrhagic viral disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. The term “yellow” refers to the jaundice that some patients present when their skin tone changes.
The symptoms of yellow fever are: fever, headaches, jaundice (also known as yellow skin), muscle aches, nausea, vomiting and tiredness.
The only way to prevent the disease is the vaccine that is applied at two points in the municipality of La Paz. “This (inoculant) is against yellow fever, which is an endemic disease that occurs in tropical municipalities in the department of La Paz. The drug is a single dose and protects for life”, according to Headquarters. He clarified that no center should deny the vaccine to citizens.
