City Hall launches contingency plan to face the disease; there are already almost 8,000 cases reported by the Ministry of Health
The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes (PSD), declared, this Friday (2.Feb.2024), that the capital of Rio de Janeiro is experiencing a dengue epidemic. According to the Ministry of Health7,923 probable cases had already been reported in the city in January until this 6th (Feb 2).
“In the last 90 days, the curve has been rising, we have had, in a single day, 569 cases reported. We are well above what is considered a very high threshold, which configures the epidemic situation in the city of Rioo”, said the municipal health secretary, Daniel Soranz. This month's numbers are equivalent to 35% of the total reported for the entire year 2023.
The disease has proven to be more serious, according to the city hall. “We have already started to see an increase in visits to urgent and emergency units. We broke the record for dengue hospitalization in the city's history, with 362 cases of people hospitalized in January alone”, said the municipal health secretary, Daniel Soranz.
The mayor announced a contingency plan similar to the one created to combat the new coronavirus and appealed to the population.
“Lives are lost due to dengue. But, unlike the covid-19 pandemic, in which individual citizens couldn't do much other than demand that governments get the vaccine, in the case of dengue it depends a lot on the action of each citizen”, said Paes. “It's no use just pointing the finger at governments or blaming the mosquito”, he added.
In the capital, the most favorable scenario for the disease results from the combination of 3 main factors:
- High temperatures – which accelerate the hatching of eggs and the development of larvae;
- Frequent rains – which form accumulations of water, and;
- Circulation of serotypes DENV1, DENV2 and DENV4
The contingency plan includes the following actions:
- operation of the Emergency Operations Center for dengue, created along the same lines as Covid-19;
- specific center for the care of patients with the disease;
- compulsory entry into closed and abandoned properties for inspections, and;
- vaccination of children and adolescents as soon as authorized by the Ministry of Health.
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