MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Dengue is back in South America: 31 dead and 46.600 suspected cases

A new “very aggressive” strain has been detected in Peru

An outbreak of dengue fever across much of Latin America has killed 31 people since the start of the year and is showing no sign of relenting. Endemic in several countries there’s growing concern following the discovery of a very “aggressive” strain in Peru.

There is no vaccine for dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease endemic to tropical regions across the world, including Asia and Africa.

Since January 1, nearly 46,600 confirmed or suspected cases have been detected in Latinamerica according to the latest reports from the Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO.

Those deaths include at least 14 in Peru's north-eastern Amazon jungle region, eight in Colombia, five in Paraguay and four in Bolivia. Another twelve are been tested in Brazil for confirmation.

In 2010 the disease killed 1,187 people across Latin America, according to PAHO figures. Some 1.8 million cases were detected, the PAHO said.

“The Americas has seen a dengue epidemic over the past years, with an increase in certain countries,” said PAHO spokesman Daniel Epstein. In Venezuela, for example, 125,000 cases were reported in 2010, nearly twice the figure from the previous year.

In Peru, health authorities recently declared a red alert in Peru's northern Amazon jungle region following the outbreak of what they described as a “very aggressive” dengue strain.

Dengue is endemic to the jungle region, but until now Peru has largely dealt with the American strain of the disease.

Now authorities are facing “a new variety that we did not know in Peru and that probably entered from Brazil via the Amazon,” Peruvian Health Minister Oscar Ugarte announced in Lima.

A senior Peruvian health official, Hugo Rodriguez pointed out that the strain is known as the Asian-American variety, and unlike the American variety produces severe shock among victims. “It is a combination of both varieties,” Rodriguez said.

Peru, Paraguay and Cuba have begun fumigation programs in an attempt to diminish the number of mosquitoes.

Brazil launched an ad campaign that features a national football team star kicking a ball at an animated mosquito dressed with the colours of Argentina, its historic football rival.

In Colombia, health authorities are keeping a sharp eye out for cases after unusually heavy rain in December and January, the National Health Institute said. In Paraguay President Fernando Lugo launched a prevention campaign calling on the population and parties “to forget colours and positions and go out and combat dengue”.

The only country in South America that has had no recorded cases of autochthonous (as opposed to imported) dengue is Uruguay.

The Aedes mosquito that transmits the disease lives in urban areas and lays its larvae in stagnant water, the PAHO said. “The main tool to fight dengue is education,” Epstein said.

People must learn to drain all stagnant water from pots, buckets, and any outside containers where the mosquitoes could lay their larvae, he said.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) figures, there are some 50 million cases of dengue around the world each year. Of those, half a million are of the potentially deadly hemorrhagic variety.