MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mercosur experts elaborate plan to address dengue epidemic

Mercosur sanitary experts met this week in Asuncion, Paraguay to address the mosquito transmitted dengue disease which is affecting all countries of the region (except Uruguay and Chile) with tens of thousand cases confirmed.

The dengue control experts discussed the possibility of implanting a unified vigilance sanitary system and agreed to elaborate on proposals to be presented in June in Paraguay when the rotating Mercosur chair will be passed on to Uruguay for the following six months.

Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay are Mercosur full members and Chile and Bolivia associates.

In Buenos Aires the Argentine government admitted this week that the dengue outbreak in the Northern provinces is the “worst on record”, but rejected describing the situation as a “national epidemic”. “It’s the worst year on record” said the head of the Public Health Ministry Epidemiology Department Juan Carlos Bossio. The epidemic in the Northern provinces has caused so far five deaths and another two are under investigation.

The officially accepted number of dengue cases is 6.200 although private sources and local officials in the affected provinces say the figure is closer to 11.000, and seven times more than in 2004, the highest previous record.

However, autochthonous or imported cases have been reported in fourteen of Argentina’s 24 provinces including several in the sprawling slum rings at the outskirts of the capital Buenos Aires

“Strictly speaking it is not a national epidemic. What we have are outbreaks in several clearly identified areas of the country”, said Bossio. He also revealed that so far “five provinces (neighbouring Bolivia and Paraguay) have detected autochthonous transmission of the dengue virus”, however he pointed out that “in each of them the disease is not extended to the whole territory”.

“We were expecting cases of dengue, but it is probable that in some provinces reactions were slow, tests and diagnosis were done too late and this helped the proliferation of the virus with the aedes agyptus mosquito”, said Bossio.

But Infectology expert Tomás Orduña remarked that “the sanitary system failed dismally for not reacting on time”. He said that in Argentina sanitary authorities were “well aware that the dengue outbreak in Bolivia ballooned to over 50.000 cases in a few weeks”. “I think we must be humble and learn the lesson which tells us that dengue does exist in Argentina”, said Orduña.

Meantime in neighbouring Paraguay sanitary authorities confirmed 36 new cases of dengue totalling over 1.000. Local authorities called on communities to help combat the disease by eliminating stagnant water where the larvae of the mosquito proliferates, and recommended the use of insect repellents and consulting doctors whenever any of the symptoms of the disease.

In Brazil dengue has become endemic and at least 36 deaths have been reported in the north-eastern states.