The outbreak of dengue in Brazil in 2022 is also a socioeconomic phenomenon, in the assessment of the vice president of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases, Alexandre Naime.
The Ministry of Health points to a 135% increase in the number of infections between January and April 2022, compared to the same period in 2021.
“Two studies published this year have already analyzed different cities in Brazil where there is a direct relationship between a drop in income and an increase in the number of dengue cases,” explained Naime to CNN Radio.
“These are people who are going to live in places that are less likely to have quality basic sanitation, close to rivers, are now less able to clean their homes correctly and will have to accumulate garbage or recycling material because they have lost their jobs.”
The discovery of a new strain of dengue in Brazil is a possible aggravating factor.
“In addition to being more transmissible, this variant of the virus causes more severe forms of the disease, with hemorrhagic phenomena and a drop in blood pressure”, explains Naime.
The identification of this strain in Brazil was communicated by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation on the 5th.
The cosmopolitan serotype 2 genotype of the virus, which was a strain already present in Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, has now infected a resident of Aparecida de Goiânia.
In addition to dengue, cases of other diseases transmitted by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, such as Zika and Chikungunya, have already registered an increase of more than 50% this year.
Source: CNN Brasil
