Peru fumigation effort aims to curb dengue outbreak

Well being personnel in protecting fits are going door to door in Peru, fumigating houses to eradicate mosquitos spreading the dengue-causing virus that has already killed 79 individuals within the nation this yr.

Greater than 73,000 individuals have been contaminated and 671 hospitalized within the newest outbreak to hit the South American nation, in line with the federal government, which blames the El Nino climate phenomenon.

“We’re in search of the larvae (of the mosquito) and fumigating home by home to fight the outbreak,” Martin Gutierrez, well being director for central Lima, advised AFP.

The marketing campaign began two weeks in the past, with dozens of fumigators deployed in 20 of Peru’s 25 departments, together with the capital, with a potent insecticide.

San Juan de Lurigancho, an impoverished Lima neighborhood of some 1.5 million individuals, has been among the many hardest-hit by the outbreak.

Throughout a latest intervention, residents stood outdoors on the road observing as well being employees in protecting fits and masks sprayed chemical substances in and round their wooden and uncooked brick houses.

“Dengue is killing many individuals. First it was COVID, we saved ourselves from COVID, now comes dengue,” mentioned one among them, 26-year-old service provider Leslie Llontop.

“We have now by no means seen it so robust. In almost all of the neighborhoods of Lima persons are getting sick,” added one other, 41-year-old Erika Toribio.

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne tropical illness that may provoke a excessive fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint ache, extreme bleeding and generally dying.

There isn’t any particular medication to deal with it.

In line with the Pan American Well being Group (PAHO), dengue is transmitted primarily in heat, wet months by the chunk of an contaminated mosquito of the Aedes aegypti species widespread within the Americas.

Mosquitos lay their eggs in water, the place they then hatch.

Peru has in latest months been hit by flooding and landslides specialists mentioned had been related to El Nino, which warms the south Pacific and pummels the nation’s Pacific coast with heavy rains.

Within the first 10 weeks this yr, mentioned a latest PAHO report, Peru reported the third-highest variety of extreme dengue circumstances within the Americas, after Colombia and Brazil.

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Additionally affected are Bolivia, Nicaragua, Belize, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Panama.

In February, Peru declared a well being emergency in a number of departments after recording a 72-percent improve in dengue circumstances from the identical interval in 2022.

For the entire of final yr, the nation had about the identical variety of dengue circumstances and deaths as to date this yr.

Among the many hardest hit had been the northern areas of Piura and Lambayeque, the place streets and homes had been inundated by torrential rains and mudslides in March and April.

Final month, the World Well being Group mentioned dengue and different illnesses equivalent to chikungunya unfold by the A. aegypti mosquito, had been spreading far sooner and additional amid local weather change.

It additionally warned that new epidemics of Zika, unfold by the identical insect, could possibly be anticipated.

© 2023 AFP