PUCALLPA, Peru – Two members of Lidia Choque’s close circle of relatives had already fallen ill with the new coronavirus when mosquitoes arrived.
The 53-year-old woman lives in a wooden space near the airport of a Peruvian city in the Amazon rainforest, the city’s fumigators stop at various times in the rainy season to eliminate pests, but this year, due to the pandemic, they were absent.
When he went to the hospital after fever and pain, he issued a double diagnosis: COVID-19 and dengue.
“I couldn’t even walk, ” he said.
As Peru deals with one of the world’s worst SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks, the virus begins to sound the alarm: dengue.
Health officials reported more than 35,000 cases this year, most commonly concentrated in the Amazon. Accumulation occurs amid an overall decrease in the number of new daily coronavirus infections, the government is involved in possibly occurring a momentary wave as dengue cases accumulate.
In the city of Pucallpa, where Choque lives, doctors say that patients are already reunited with either disease, two doctors reported that dengue symptoms such as fever and muscle aches tend to dominate, mixing with COVID-19 can be fatal.
“There are more risks,” said Dr. Rosmery Rojas, a public hospital doctor who says she cares for patients with daily dengue.
The Ucayali region along a muddy river has long experienced periodic outbreaks of dengue, Rojas and others said that this year’s numbers were already 3 times higher than in 2019. In the Americas, there were more than 3. 1 million cases of dengue last year, the highest number recorded, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
The Americas branch of the World Health Organization reports that there has been a widespread minimum of pandemic dengue cases, with just over 2 million recorded so far this year, adding 845 deaths, of which nearly 1. 4 million occurred in Brazil.
It is not known whether relief is similar to COVID-19, a spokeswoman said public fitness measures to save him from the new virus may have played a role.
However, in the Peruvian Amazon, an increasing number of dengue patients are filling hospital beds that months earlier were hit through patients with COVID-19; some, such as Choque, are informed that they are either in poor health when they arrive at the hospital. .
“Many other people arrive co-infected,” Dr. Mariano Alarcón said.
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease, known as “breaking fever” because of its very painful symptoms. Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore and Indonesia have faced double outbreaks of dengue and viruses this year as closures have suspended prevention activities.
Dengue is not fatal, but severe cases may require hospitalization. Removing trash, old tires and other items containing water can help stop the disease, movements peruvian officials are taking lately in hopes of preventing increased dengue cases.
Choque said he went to the hospital after his symptoms didn’t dissipate. Immediate control of viral antibodies, possibly involving a past infection, came back negative, but a doctor saw spots on a chest x-ray that led to her diagnosing COVID-19. The mother of three is still skeptical about whether she had the virus.
He spent nearly two weeks in a room with 8 dengue patients, who were plagued with anxiety about his condition.
“I felt desperate,” she said.
In retrospect, Choque believes that the absence of fumigation contributed to his fall with dengue, installed boxes full of burning charcoal and dried eucalyptus leaves to hunt mosquitoes, but said they were still endemic when he became ill.
“More emphasis has been placed on COVID,” he said. They overlooked dengue fever. “