Nicaragua will close this 2024 with a record of more than 11,120 confirmed cases of dengue, according to a review carried out by Article 66 to the weekly bulletins of the Ministry of Health (Minsa) and to the latest update of that institution delivered to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
The Minsa, for the second time this year, updated the confirmed and suspected cases that were registered in Nicaragua before PAHO. The report states that until week 45 of 2024, which runs from October 26 to November 2, 79,332 suspected cases of dengue were documented in Nicaragua, of which 9,464 indicate that they were confirmed in the laboratory.
Adding to these 9,464 positive cases of dengue the weekly reports of the last six weeks, from November 9 to December 21, which the Minsa disclosed in official media, the number of confirmed cases rises to 11,120.
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The weeks that were not reported by the Minsa to the PAHO were those corresponding to November 9 to 16 (321); from November 17 to 23 (267); and from November 24 to 30 (252).
Also, the week of December 1 to 7 was not reported (254); from December 8 to 14 (281); and from December 15 to 21 (281).
The number of confirmed cases of dengue, it is worth mentioning, could be higher, taking into account that the authorities still need to report the number of cases they documented between the 22nd and the 31st of this month.
Dengue cases increased in the Americas
The confirmed cases of dengue registered in 2024 in Nicaragua exceed the figures reported by the Minsa to PAHO in the last five years.
In 2018, 2,103 positive cases of dengue were documented; in 2019 there were 10,587; In 2020, 1,259 were added; In 2021 only 515 were registered; in 2022 they included 4,520; and in 2023 there was also a rebound in confirmed dengue cases with 9,379.
Related news: Minsa reports more than 10 thousand suspected cases of dengue in October
The authorities of the Pan American Health Organization, in their updated report on the epidemiological situation in the Americas, released last December 19, highlighted that the region also had a significant increase in dengue.
He detailed that in the Americas, between epidemiological weeks 1 and 48 of 2024, a total of 12,780,728 suspected cases of dengue were reported; that is, 1,338 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
PAHO explained that the figure represents “an increase of 195% compared to the same period in 2023 and 371% compared to the last five years.” In addition, it specified that among the 12,780,728 suspected cases, a total of 6,784,079 cases (53%) confirmed by laboratory and 21,842 (0.17%) that were classified as severe dengue were included.
The director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Jarbas Barbosa, during this month and prior to updating the dengue data in the region, warned that in 2024 the region has “faced the largest dengue epidemic in the Americas, since records began in 1980.
