Dengue Surging in Mexico, Latin America

A anti-dengue brigade, belonging to the municipal health department mark a home after checking for standing water or other areas where mosquitoes breed in the resort city of Cancun, Mexico, Friday, March 30, 2007. The deadly hemorrhagic form of dengue fever is increasing dramatically in Mexico, and experts predict a surge throughout Latin America fueled by climate change, migration and faltering mosquito eradication efforts.(AP Photo/Israel Leal) (Israel Leal - AP)

In January and February, Mexico's dry season, there were 1,589 cases of both types of dengue nationwide, up 380 percent from the same period in 2006, Kuri said. And last year was also bad for dengue: Mexico documented 27,000 infections overall _ including 4,477 hemorrhagic cases and 20 deaths _ compared with 1,781 cases overall in 2001.

Dengue has been found along the U.S.-Mexico border, where 151 classic and 46 hemorrhagic cases were recorded last year in the Gulf state of Tamaulipas, south of Texas.

Historically, the United States hasn't been immune from dengue _ a 1922 outbreak in Texas infected a half-million people. And according to the CDC, dengue returned to southern Texas in 1980 after a 35-year absence. Occasional cases since then have included hemorrhagic dengue.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of the world's leading climate scientists, predicted in March that global warming and climate change would cause an upsurge in dengue. In Mexico, officials say longer rainy seasons already are leading to more cases.

"It used to be seasonal, in the hottest, wettest months, and now in some regions we are seeing it practically all year," said Joel Navarrete, an epidemiologist with the Mexican Social Security Institute.

The global solution to dengue outbreaks is mosquito control, and faltering eradication efforts, together with climate change, probably share blame for dengue's rise in the Americas, Kuri said.

A successful eradication program in Latin America in the 1960s sent the disease into remission, but economic crises and government downsizing sapped those efforts over the next two decades. Some countries reported severe outbreaks in the 1980s, and by the 1990s, dengue began a regional resurgence.

Paraguay declared a state of emergency in March after 17 people died of hemorrhagic dengue and an estimated 400,000 were infected with the milder "classic" form of the disease. The government sent soldiers into the streets in an emergency campaign to spray insecticides and clean up stagnant water.

At least 24 people died of hemorrhagic dengue in the Dominican Republic last year.

"It's part of globalization," Kuri said. "Someone can be in Paraguay, where there is a big outbreak, with type-one virus, and six hours later be in Mexico."

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On the Net:

Centers for Disease Control dengue site: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/dengue/