Brazil reaches record number of Dengue

Brazil recorded its highest number of confirmed Dengue cases in the first 16 weeks of the current year. The figure exceeds four million, even exceeding the expectation speculated by the Secretary of Health Surveillance of the Ministry of Health, Ethel Maciel, which was 4 million and 200 thousand cases of the disease for the entire period of the year 2024.

Scary Numbers

The Ministry of Health's Arbovirus Panel updated the number this Monday (29) and recorded 4,127,571 cases, as already mentioned, this number is unprecedented in the tropical country. The highest count of the disease occurred in 2015, when Brazil registered 1,688,688 cases.

At the same time in 2023, the country had 902,174 Dengue infections. The number is scary because, compared to this year, it is around four times smaller. Furthermore, to date, 1,937 deaths have been confirmed due to Dengue since January, in the same period last year, the number was 620 confirmed deaths.

Dengue serotypes and number of cases

Dengue has four different serotypes that also cause different ways in which the disease can affect the human body, DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3 and DENV-4. The most common in Brazil is type one, which has a record of infection in all 26 Brazilian states in addition to the Federal District. The second most registered serotype is 2, which is present in 24 states and the country's capital. The only place that indicated contamination of the four Dengue serotypes is the state of Minas Gerais.

Once infected by a certain serotype of Dengue, the body becomes immune to this variation, therefore each human being can be infected by the disease four times throughout their life.

Mosquito characteristics and symptoms

Aedes aegypti is a mosquito originating from Africa whose name, “hateful of Egypt”, is derived from Latin and Greek. It has clearly visible white spots on its leg, measuring around 5 to 7 mm and when it sucks blood from our body, its belly turns red. In addition to Dengue, the mosquito also transmits Zika, Chikungunya and Yellow Fever.

_{Doctor comments on the contagion and prevention of Dengue (Video Reproduction/YouTube/Dr Juliano Teles)}

The main symptoms that may indicate Dengue infection are; high body temperature, muscle pain, red spots, pain behind the eye, nausea, vomiting and severe headaches.

Featured Photo: Dengue Mosquito or Aedes aegypti (Reproduction/minhavida/João Paulo Burini)