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Ministers of Health Hear About Need to Stop Dramatic Progress of Dengue

Washington, DC, September 25, 2003 (PAHO)—Ministers of Health meeting today at the headquarters of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) heard details on integrated prevention and control strategies needed to face the growing dengue epidemic.

The number of cases of dengue in the Americas skyrocketed from 393,260 in 1984 to 1,019,196 in 2002, according to PAHO experts. A serious disease with a significant epidemiological impact, dengue, transmitted by mosquitoes, has become a growing public health problem and its most serious forms, dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome, have been introduced into the Americas.

While all the countries have been fighting dengue, interventions have not controlled the disease and new strategies involving health promotion and new partners are needed to strengthen national programs, a PAHO expert said.

As part of PAHO’s efforts to meet the dengue challenge, new forms of technical cooperation are being developed, such as national Dengue Task Forces. These comprise experts who work with technical teams in the countries and develop national strategies for integrated operations.

In the Americas, PAHO figures on dengue show:

The disease has been steadily on the rise over the last 7 years. The countries of the Andean region (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) and Brazil made up 78.5 percent of the dengue cases in the Region of the Americas in 1996. By the end of 2002, these numbers had increased to 88.5 percent of dengue cases reported in the Americas. In 2002, Brazil had 780,644 cases and an incidence rate of 452 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants. Colombia had 76,996 cases with an incidence rate of 210 per 100,000 persons, and Venezuela had 37,676 cases, an incidence rate of 153 per 100,000 inhabitants. Dengue hemorrhagic fever cases jumped from 5,092 cases in 1996 to 14,272 in 2002.

New strategies were suggested that integrate promotion, surveillance, evaluation of disease burden and risks, and community and national actions aim to achieve sustainable national strategies based on evaluation and continuity.

Countries were urged to give political priority to the fight against dengue, with the goals of reducing the number of outbreaks, to diminish the magnitude and severity of outbreaks, keeping the number of cases of the disease low, and cutting mortality caused by dengue.

PAHO was established in 1902 and is the world’s oldest public health organization. PAHO works with all the countries of the Americas to improve the health and the quality of life of its people. It also serves as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization (WHO).