More than a thousand people have died from dengue fever in Bangladesh since the beginning of the year, according to official figures, representing the worst outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus in the country.
Figures published by the General Directorate of Health Services on Sunday evening indicate that 1,006 people have died out of more than 200,000 confirmed infections.
Former Director of Health Services P-Nazir Ahmed said that the number of deaths since the beginning of 2023 exceeds the total number of cases recorded since 2000, when Bangladesh detected the first outbreak of dengue fever on its territory.
“It is a huge event, both in Bangladesh and in the world,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Bangladesh has recorded cases of dengue fever since the 1960s, but witnessed its first outbreak of the disease in 2000.
Dengue fever is an endemic disease transmitted by mosquitoes and causes severe fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, and in severe cases, bleeding that can lead to death.
Official figures showed that among the deceased this year were 12 children under the age of 15, some of whom were infants.
This year’s toll exceeds the previous record number recorded in 2022, which amounted to 281 deaths.
Scientists attributed the outbreak in 2023 to erratic rainfall and high temperatures during the annual monsoon, which created ideal conditions for mosquitoes to breed.
The virus that causes the disease has become endemic in Bangladesh, which has been facing a worsening epidemic since the beginning of the century.
Most of the injuries were recorded during the monsoon from July to September, which are the months in which the majority of the country’s annual rain falls, in addition to floods and occasional landslides.
However, in recent years, hospitals in Bangladesh have begun receiving people infected with this disease during the winter months.
In Dhaka, dengue wards in major hospitals are now crowded with patients receiving treatment under mosquito nets, in front of their worried family members.
Muhammad Rafiqul Islam, a doctor at Shaheed Suhrawardy College, a medical college and government hospital in Dhaka, said people who have been infected multiple times are more likely to face complications.
Most of the patients admitted to hospital contracted dengue fever two or three times.
He told Agence France-Presse, “When someone becomes infected with dengue fever for the second, third, or fourth time, the severity of the disease increases, and deaths also increase.”
He added, “Many people come to us for consultation when the disease is already at an advanced stage. Their treatment becomes complicated.”
The United Nations World Health Organization has warned that dengue fever and other diseases caused by mosquito-borne viruses are spreading faster and more widely due to climate change.
The organization’s director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noted during an online press conference that “the epidemic is placing enormous pressure on the health system in Bangladesh.”
In September, the organisation’s Alert and Response Director, Abdi Mahmoud, said more countries would face such outbreaks with global warming, citing the need for global solidarity.
He pointed out that this type of epidemic represents an early warning of the danger of climate change.
He added that a group of factors, including climate change and the El Niño phenomenon, contributed to the emergence of dangerous epidemics in several regions of the world, including Bangladesh and South America.
He noted that countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Chad, have recently reported outbreaks of the disease there.
2023-10-02 14:32:51
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