Peru will declare a health emergency in 20 regions due to the increase in dengue cases

The Minister of Health of Peru, César Vásquez, announced this Monday that 20 regions of the country will be declared a health emergency due to the increase in dengue cases, which have reached 24,981 cases and 28 deaths so far this year.

“There are 20 regions that will be considered in a health emergency situation due to dengue. The details of the decree are being finalized so that it can be approved in the next few hours,” Vásquez declared on the RPP radio station.

According to the station, the emergency will include the regions of Amazonas, Áncash, Ayacucho, Cajamarca, Cuzco, Huánuco, Ica, Junín, La Libertad, Lambayeque, Lima, Loreto, Madre de Dios, Pasco, Piura, Puno, San Martín, Tumbes , Ucayali and Callao.

The minister maintained that this type of measure is declared “when one's regular plan is overwhelmed and some logistical processes need to be accelerated.”

Vásquez said that the reported cases and the number of deaths imply a 95% increase compared to the same period in 2023, when 12,264 infections and 18 deaths were recorded.

He added that there are currently localities in the country that face an “imminent risk from this epidemic,” although he assured that Peru is not the country with the highest fatality rate caused by the disease in the region. “There are countries like Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, which are in a more complex situation than ours,” he commented.

The minister had announced last Friday that a health emergency was going to be declared “in the first stage” in four regions of the country due to the increase in dengue cases.

After participating in a day of fumigation in a popular neighborhood in the southern region of Ica, he noted that dengue “has overflowed” in several regions of the country.

In general, the northern and coastal departments are the most affected by dengue, a disease that spreads more with heat, and it is precisely in these areas where the highest temperatures have been reached in recent weeks.

Vásquez reiterated this Monday that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the high temperatures caused by the presence of the El Niño climate phenomenon cause the larvae of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits the disease, to proliferate “faster.” “.