To curb the spread of COVID-19, governments have issued blockades to keep others at home. They reduced activities that affected, such as garbage collection. They’ve tried to protect hospitals from the influx of patients.
However, the cascading effects of these restrictions hamper efforts to cope with seasonal outbreaks of dengue fever, an incurable mosquito-borne disease known as “fractal fever” for its very painful symptoms.
Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore and Indonesia have simultaneous outbreaks of dengue and COVID-19.
Picture: AP
In Brazil, with more than 1.6 million cases of COVID-19, at least 1.1 million cases of dengue have been reported, with around 400 deaths, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
Cases are likely to rise further with the start of seasonal rains in Latin America and Asia.
Dengue is not fatal, however, severe cases may require hospitalization. Preventive efforts to destroy mosquito breeding sites, such as waste disposal or old tires and other water-containing items, remain the most productive tactics to prevent the spread of the disease.
THE coVID-19 blockades meant that these efforts were reduced or halted in many countries.
In Pakistan, plans to disinfect shops and markets that had dengue fever outbreaks last year were shelved due to COVID-19, Pakistani Young Doctor’s Association president Rizwan Kundi said.
Having to identify thousands of COVID-19 cases has meant that dengue fever surveillance has suffered in many Latin American countries, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Health Director for the Americas Maria Franca Tallarico said.
Experts say that disrupting such prevention efforts is ominous for the global battle against dengue fever.
Last year, the worst year in dengue cases, with all regions affected, and some countries were affected for the first time, according to WHO.
Experts say that while reduced means less chance of mosquitoes infecting other dengue people to become carriers, COVID-19 has brought other variables.
Stay home? – a way to curb COVID-19 epidemics – presents greater dangers of dengue spread due to the accumulation of mosquito populations in homes, said singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA).
Having an effect is already visible. Singapore recorded a five-fold build-up in mosquito larvae detected in non-unusual homes and corridors in residential spaces during the two-month COVID-19 blockage period, compared to the last two months. As of 6 July, the total number of dengue cases in Singapore was more than 15,500 and is expected to exceed 22,170 reported cases in 2013, which at the time was the largest dengue outbreak in Singapore’s history, according to the NEA.
Tallarico said that working with Latin American communities to save mosquitoes from reproduction has been the ultimate successful strategy in recent years, adding that, with strict movement constraints, he did not know if those measures were still in place, and “that is the big concern.
A shortage of protective equipment due toe COVID-19 also means limiting the number of first responders to dengue fever, she said.
Dengue patients want acute care, which can lead to a “double whale” that overwhelms fitness systems, said Scott O’Neill, director of the Global Mosquito Program, a non-governmental organization that focuses on preventing mosquito-borne diseases.
In the Tahija Foundation’s study lab in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, which studies dengue fever, “it is too difficult to recruit patients with social estrangement measures,” O’Neill said, adding that the facility is now used for COVID-19 testing.