Guatemala declared this Tuesday a national health emergency due to the increase in cases of dengue, an “epidemic” that has left nine deaths and more than 14,600 infections in the country since January 2024.
The measure was announced by the Ministry of Health, which urged public and private organizations in the sector in a document to coordinate actions with the ministry to prevent outbreaks with fumigation days and maintain surveillance to “reduce mortality.”
At the beginning of March 2024, the Government of Social Democratic President Bernardo Arévalo de León declared a national epidemiological alert due to “the beginning of the season in which dengue transmission increases in the country.”
The global incidence of dengue has grown considerably in the last two decades and Latin America is the region where 80% of the world’s cases are recorded, according to the Guatemalan ministry.
In 2023, dengue left 118 deaths and about 65,000 cases in Guatemala, a historical maximum that surpassed the record of 2019, when there were more than 50,000 cases, according to official statistics.
Dengue is a disease endemic to tropical areas that causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain and, in the most severe cases, hemorrhages that can cause death.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned in April 2023 that dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases are spreading much further and further from their usual areas due to climate change.
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