Cases of dengue fever topped 5.2 million in 2024 across the Americas this week, and a United Nations health agency is calling it an “emergency situation.”
Jarbas Barbosa, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), confirmed the shockingly high numbers at a press briefing Thursday, the Daily Mail reported.
There has been a nearly 50 percent increase in cases from the already staggering 3.5 million cases recorded as of last month.
“We are in an emergency situation because of dengue,” Barbosa told reporters.
Over 1,800 people have died across the Americas from the mosquito-borne disease, a jump from the approximately 1,000 deaths “reported last month in the year through March.”
While saying that “there seems to be a stabilization, or even a reduction” in the number of cases in certain countries, the health director reported that South American countries like Argentina and Brazil “still have a very strong transmission.”
A municipal health department official inspects a residential building garden for mosquito larva while combating a dengue outbreak in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. The Southern Hemisphere is watching a wave of dengue cases, with more than 3.5 million cases reported across the region, 83% of which are concentrated in Brazil, according to the Pan American Health Organization. (Lucas Landau/Bloomberg via Getty)
Warning that the existing dengue vaccine has “very limited” availability, Barbosa said that an outbreak would be strong, even with an increase in supply.
“The dengue vaccine can play an important role in reducing severe cases of deaths, but it will take time until the effects of the vaccine can be reflected in the decrease in dengue cases,” he said.
The disease has spread so much in Brazil that “tent hospitals were erected in Brasilia and other cities at strategic points to triage patients with the virus,” according to the Daily Mail.
Dengue has been nicknamed the “bone-breaking disease” [more commonly “breakbone fever”] because it can cause “joint and muscle pain so severe that it feels as if the bones are breaking,” the outlet noted.
According to PAHO, approximately 500 million people in the Americas today are “at risk” of contracting dengue.
Despite the seriousness of the disease, the fatality rate was just 0.051 percent in 2023. A patient typically recovers once the uncomfortable flu-like symptoms and pain have run their course.
In the United States, two locally transmitted cases have been reported in Florida so far this year. Outside of the Sunshine State, no dengue patients have yet been registered.
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