The 2020 Dengue Outbreak in Latin America
(Photo : Reuters)

An article from Wion stated that Latin America is reported to have been hit with a severe dengue outbreak. Peru had currently reported the recent victims of this plague. 

Peru's Dengue Outbreak

It was reported by Peru that the dengue virus had already taken the lives of 12 Peruvians. All over Peru, there were 5,400 confirmed cases of the illness. 

Authorities from Peru had already declared the dengue issue in some regions in the country as a health emergency. These regions are experiencing the worst cases of the outbreak.  

Many of the dengue cases had come from the eastern jungle regions that served as a border to Bolivia and Brazil.

Paraguay's Dengue Outbreak

A neighbor of Peru, Paraguay, had also experienced the harsh effects of the outbreak caused by the mosquito-carried disease. An increasing number of deaths due to dengue fever have been reported being in Paraguay.

Health authorities have reported 85,000 confirmed cases of the Dengue illness in the entire country and this number is changing at an increasing trend.

Sixteen people have lost their lives due to the sickness. This is seen as the worst outbreak of a disease in the past decade for South America. This is also causing problems for the country's healthcare system.

The senate of Paraguay had announced a 90-day health emergency after the alarming condition of the outbreak in the country. Mario Abdo Benitez, the President of Paraguay had also contracted the illness. 

Dengue Outbreak in Bolivia

Also, Bolivia reports more or less 9,500 unconfirmed cases of the dengue outbreak nationwide. The Department of Santa Cruz has one of the most numbers of infected cases with a total of 1,200 cases. 

Previous News about the Outbreak in Latin America

According to NPR, last year was a record-breaker for Latin America involving the dengue outbreak. From Mexico, Chile, to Argentina, it had reported a total of 3 million confirmed cases of the disease. This total is more than 20% of the total recorded cases in 2015. 2 million of the total came from Brazil. Some of the nations in Central America that had it bad from the illness are Belize, Nicaragua, and Honduras. 

In 2019, at least 1,300 people had lost their lives in Latin America due to the dengue virus. Throughout the year, hospitals and medical centers had struggled to take care of the increasing number of dengue cases in their area.

The Dengue Fever

Dengue fever is one of the most fast-spreading mosquito-carried illnesses in the world. After contracting the virus through a mosquito bite, a person will then show symptoms such as those similar to the flu and in worst cases, internal bleeding. 

Some nations are still in the process of battling dengue outbreaks. Currently, there is no specific cure for the disease. Also, the people who get infected with the virus had been increasing over the past decades. 

The Aedes Aegypti is the species of mosquito that is capable of carrying the dengue virus. It can transfer the deadly virus through a bite. It can increase in population through laying eggs in different places where a pool of water is present.