The Dengue emergency continues its trail of cases and deaths in Brazil. Infections exceed 3 million and in the first 13 weeks of 2024 the country has already surpassed the historical annual record of deaths from Dengue fever. This was reported by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The report updated yesterday indicated 1,116 confirmed deaths caused by the disease, never so many since 2000. And in 2023 the total deaths from Dengue were just over a thousand.
Positive signals seem to come from the epidemiological trend. According to the Brazilian government, in fact, “in most regions of the country it is the peak of infections has already been passed. Eight of the 27 states show a consolidated downward trend and in another 12 there is a stable trend.”
Andreoni: “It is not a national emergency in Italy, but it is good to be vigilant”
“Dengue is certainly not a national emergency and we do not expect a major epidemic.” Thus at Adnkronos Salute Massimo Andreoni, scientific director of Simit, the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, on the sidelines of the conference 'Vaccination protection in fragile patients at risk', promoted today at the Ministry of Health. “However, we have to control what happens. Last year we had 82 indigenous cases, this demonstrates that the system is capable of developing and expanding the disease once it has arrived in our country. Given the general situation, it is presumable that we will have a few more cases in Italy this year. The possibility that a person, after having contracted infection in a highly endemic area (South America or South East Asia), comes to us and, having us the vector – the tiger mosquito – is able to transmit the disease is very probable”.
“We do not expect large numbers – reassures the infectious disease specialist – also because the tiger mosquito is less competent than the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) at transmitting the virus. We must obviously pay attention to how many people arrive in Italy with the disease, because by blocking the patient blocks the circuit. It's good be careful that Aedes aegypti does not arrive in Italy, because it is already present in the Caspian Sea and therefore is close. If this mosquito also arrived in Italy, the situation would obviously change and we would become more similar to highly endemic countries”, concludes Andreoni.
Siliquini: “No danger for the population in our country”
“Dengue in Italy does not represent a public health problem for the population, if anything it must be one for local administrators because we now have an anomalous density of mosquitoes for our country, carriers of a series of pathologies, including Dengue fever. Local administrators must intervene with disinfestation.” Roberta Siliquini, president of the Italian Society of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine and Public Health (SItI), told Adnkronos Salute on the sidelines of the conference 'Vaccination protection in fragile patients at risk' promoted today in Rome, in the Ministry Auditorium of health. Dengue vaccination “is absolutely not recommended for our country. But even for those who travel abroad, particularly to endemic areas, vaccination is only recommended if these people have already had an episode of Dengue. So, I repeat, there is no danger to the population.”
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