Nine people have died this year in the Dominican Republic because of dengue, a disease that continues to rise in the country, local health minister Rafael Sánchez Cárdenas reported Tuesday.
In an appearance before the press at the Dr. Robert Reid Cabral Children’s Hospital, where several of these deaths have occurred, the official said that 21 cases of probable cases have been “audited” and there are “nine deaths.”
The latest bulletin of the General Directorate of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health, which refers to week 29, between July 14 and 20 and which was published last Friday, confirmed eight deaths from the disease, but Sánchez Cárdenas confirmed today death of another patient, although he did not specify age or sex.
The information accounted for 565 new infections, so the total number of cases reported during the year amounted to 5,548 people.
On the other hand, Sánchez Cárdenas revealed that 45 people are admitted for the disease.
He also announced that health authorities will conduct a national survey to determine the behavior of the disease at the national level, while denying that information about it is being hidden.
“All cases are recorded in the epidemiological bulletin” of the General Directorate of Epidemiology and published weekly, he said, although he pointed out that “the information, as it serves, can generate panic in the population.”
In turn, he stressed the need to take the febrile patient immediately to the health center to avoid complications and urged the medical staff to duly comply with the established protocols for that disease.
«People who present and feel some symptoms such as high fever, pain behind the eyes and joints, severe headache, rash on most of the body, mild bleeding in the nose or gums should go immediately to the center of closer health since there are several risk factors that can aggravate the diagnosis of dengue, ”he said.
The Dominican Republic records an increase in dengue cases of 781% compared to 2018, the year in which the incidence rate was very low, of 10.98 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and only one fatality was registered.
The incidence of dengue usually increases in the summer months, which coincide with the wettest season in the Caribbean, which facilitates the proliferation of Aedes aegypti, a mosquito that transmits diseases such as dengue, Zika and Chikungunya.
In recent weeks, the Ministry of Health has implemented a series of measures to prevent the spread of dengue, such as fumigation in homes, training of hospital staff and the removal of scrap, which can serve as a breeding ground for the mosquito .
In 2015, the last year with a high incidence of the disease in the Dominican Republic, 103 deaths and 16,871 infections were recorded.
With information from almomento.net.
