Sao Paulo opened an emergency operations center on Tuesday to deal with a surge in dengue cases that has hit Brazil and South America as millions of tourists arrive for Carnival celebrations.
Cases of mosquito-borne diseases have risen sharply in Argentina, where a record 10,000 cases were reported in the first three weeks of the year.
Meanwhile, Paraguay has declared a state of health emergency against dengue. Since December, 36 deaths have been recorded, including 12 children, he said.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second-largest city after Sao Paulo, also declared a state of emergency for public fitness on Monday, four days before the official opening of its famous carnival.
Authorities have announced the opening of 10 treatment centers pledged to ease the pressure on Rio’s hospitals.
“It was smart to have opened this center. Hospitals cannot take care of this situation alone,” Luciana Ferreira, a patient in the working-class neighborhood of Curicica, told AFP.
The capital, Brasilia, has opened an emergency hospital.
Brazil recorded 345,235 probable cases of dengue in the first five weeks of the year, nearly 4 times the number recorded at the same time last year.
Another 31 people have died from dengue, according to Brazil’s health ministry, which is still analyzing 234 deaths that may have been caused by the disease.
Sao Paulo is recently testing a drone that uses a larvicide to kill mosquitoes in hard-to-reach areas.
Brazil is making plans to launch a public dengue vaccination campaign this month, but a lack of doses from the vaccine’s manufacturer, Japanese pharmaceutical company Takeda, means young people between the ages of 10 and 14 will be targeted.
The Brazilian government says it is the option to generate a vaccine against dengue at the national level.
Dengue, which can cause hemorrhagic fever, infects an estimated 100 million to 400 million people yearly, though most cases are mild or asymptomatic, according to the World Health Organization.
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