Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second most populous city, declared this Monday, February 5, a state of health emergency due to the explosive dengue epidemic that hit the city in early 2024. The number of new infections in the last month of January exceeded 10,000 and was the highest in a single month in the city in 50 years, since monitoring of the disease began in 1974.
The decree declaring a state of health emergency was published this Monday in the Official Gazette of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro and signed by Mayor Eduardo Paes, who for several days has been drawing the attention of the central authorities to the seriousness of the situation. now in the city. Over the weekend, Brazil’s Health Minister Nicia Trindade played down stark warnings from regional and local managers about the ferocious spread of dengue fever, saying in Brasília that some cities and states do see outbreaks of the disease, but Brazil does. the country is not facing an epidemic of this disease, and there is no reason for widespread alarm.
Eduardo Paes signed the emergency decree based on the municipality’s official infection figures for January alone: 10,156 new infections, a number never seen in such a short period of time, but even that number has already been exceeded. Rio de Janeiro’s municipal health authorities already have data, not yet officially published in the weekly bulletin, that puts the number of new infections at more than 11,500 if cases that emerged in the first four days of February are included.
In addition to declaring a state of emergency, which will allow the city council to take action and cut costs without having to go through lengthy bureaucratic procedures, the government of Rio de Janeiro will create 10 emergency centers for citizens who develop any symptoms of dengue fever, such as pain in the eyes, body and fever, the first of which will take effect this Monday in a large municipal health facility. Service tents will be set up at strategic points in the capital Rio de Janeiro, and beds will be reserved in the city’s hospitals exclusively to serve people with more serious cases of dengue.
In January, 362 people required hospitalization and the number is estimated to increase further in February, even as dengue is in its critical period. Typically, the largest number of new viral infections occurs in April and May, but this year the infectious explosion began earlier.
Despite the fact that Lula da Silva’s government is trying to keep the situation to a minimum, according to data published by the Ministry of Health itself, which has confirmed six deaths from the disease and another 162 suspected deaths are under analysis. And the official data themselves show that the disease is progressing across the country at an impressive pace, because the number of new cases of infection in the country in the first two weeks of 2024 amounted to 55 thousand, an already quite high figure for two weeks. after a sharp increase in the number of cases of infection of more than 188 thousand people. (END).
Author: Domingos Grilo Serrinha This correspondent in Brazil
Source: CM Jornal
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