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DECEMBER 10, 12:01 EST
Dengue Fever Hits in Latin America
By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press Writer
Dengue fever patient
Associated Press/Luis Romero [18K]
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COATEPEQUE, Guatemala (AP) — Maria Oloxon thought her son Cristian was out of
the woods.
The 5-year-old's fever was all but gone, his wiry black hair no longer
dripped with sweat and there was no trace of the crippling muscle pains that
had left his tan body riving in agony for eight days.
But then the blood began to run from his nose, ooze from his lips and trickle
out of his throat.
``We were noting that his color was much better and saying that he could go
outside and play with his cousins,'' said Oloxon, a 33-year-old mother of
five. ``Then we were screaming and praying, 'Please God, save our little
one.'''
Cristian, who was rushed to the hospital and eventually made a full recovery,
had been stricken with a potentially fatal form of dengue fever — a painful,
mosquito-borne virus characterized by headaches, rashes, cramps and severe
back and bone pain.
Most dengue sufferers recover after about a week, but those stricken with the
disease's hemorrhagic variety begin to bleed internally just when it appears
they have recovered. The victims can die within a few days if they are not
hospitalized.
Hemorrhagic dengue, which usually strikes children and the elderly because of
their weak immune systems, has killed at least 70 people in Latin America
this year.
There is no cure for dengue and medical experts aren't sure how the
hemorrhagic virus is structurally different from dengue's nonfatal forms.
Still, doctors can save those stricken with hemorrhagic dengue by treating
its symptoms and replenishing the blood and plasma lost to internal bleeding
— if the patients receive treatment in time.
Mosquito fumigation
Associated Press/Moises Castillo [25K]
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A global pandemic of dengue began in Southeast Asia after World War II and
began intensifying in 1982, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
It is not as aggressive as other highly contagious viruses such as Ebola, but
is instead carried by mosquitoes born in the standing water found in ponds,
outdoor sinks, flower pots or garbage piles located behind many homes in
Central and South America.
Houses without air conditioning, whose screen-less windows are almost always
left open to combat stifling heat, become easy targets for the insects, which
feed at night when homes are teeming with family members.
``One infected person can infect an entire neighborhood,'' said Jorge Arias,
Latin American adviser on communicable diseases for the Washington-based Pan
American Health Organization. ``Once a mosquito bites someone with dengue, it
becomes very easy for that mosquito to give it to dozens of others.''
Arias said dengue in all its forms is not a problem in the United States
because of the air conditioners and window screens found in most homes there.
Americans are also not as likely to have standing water close to open windows
as people living in Latin America, he said.
But in El Salvador, doctors have seen more than 330 new cases of hemorrhagic
dengue since October, when the government declared a nationwide state of
emergency.
In 11 months this year, 35 people have died from complications related to
hemorrhagic dengue, Health Minister Jose Lopez Beltran said. That number was
expected to exceed 45 by the end of the year, he said.
A contingent of dengue experts from the United States and around the world
have since arrived to treat and observe more than 3,000 patients suffering
from both potentially fatal and non-deadly forms of dengue.
While the disease is not directly contagious, a 24-year-old Cuban medical
volunteer who traveled to San Salvador to help treat dengue patients died
Oct. 11 after being bitten by a mosquito in a crowded public hospital.
Dengue has also killed 10 people in Honduras so far this year and doctors
were watching hundreds of patients believed to be suffering from the fatal
form of dengue, health ministry officials reported.
According to Arias, complications caused by dengue fever have also killed
seven people in the Dominican Republic, four in Venezuela and claimed three
victims in Nicaragua and Brazil.
``The trend is that things will get worse unless definite action is taken,''
Arias said.
Eight Guatemalans have died from the effects of dengue — six of whom were
children who hailed from this sweltering and scruffy town of 200,000 people
located 130 miles west of Guatemala City.
``We are on red alert,'' said Saul Orlando Martinez, head of Coatepeque's
national hospital. ``We can treat patients who come in with internal
bleeding, but we don't know how many others are out there suffering from a
disease that can kill them next week.''
If treating dengue patients is difficult, however, officials have found that
educating the local population on the disease is even tougher.
Down a dark and dusty hospital hallway piled high with brown-and-blue boxes
of imported baby formula, 9-year-old Elder Perez told doctors he remembered
getting bitten by a mosquito that gave him the dengue that nearly killed him.
But his father has other ideas about where the disease originated.
``Where we live the air is infected,'' said Delfino Perez, 36, who cannot
read the half-dozen signs warning of dengue-carrying mosquitoes which hang
beside pastel murals of Mickey Mouse and his pals on the children's ward's
scuffed walls.
``We have a lot of fear left over from (Guatemala's 36-year civil war) and
that fear hurts the smallest people, our children.''
Public Health Ministry officials have spent more than $130,000 since
September on radio spots and pamphlets that begin: ``THIS MESSAGE CAN SAVE
YOUR LIFE.''
Still, on Coatepeque's litter-strewn streets of filthy asphalt and melting
tar where shirtless men swat at dragonflies the size of hummingbirds and
women hawk plastic bags full of mangoes and bananas, it's clear dengue
remains almost a complete mystery.
``I've seen it many times in the people in my church,'' said Ernesto Perez, a
local evangelical minister. ``The disease signifies that Jesus Christ is
testing people. It is a test not everyone can (survive).''
Health Ministry field supervisor Julio Ramirez said even several hundred
soldiers deployed here from Guatemala City to mop up standing water cannot
understand how a simple mosquito can carry a deadly disease.
``Most think you just contract dengue or you do not, period,'' said Ramirez,
head of a five-man team which uses lawnmower-engine powered hoses strapped to
their backs to fumigate Coatepeque's sprawling open-air market.
But Martinez said widespread confusion may be a blessing — especially because
most locals toil in the verdant coffee fields which ring the outskirts of
town.
``So many people work outside with thousands of mosquitoes that many would
panic if they knew certain types of mosquitoes could spread this,'' Martinez
said.
``For the sake of their children and their homes, we want to educate them,
but there can be no doubt that the ignorance has prevented a panic.''
———
On the Net:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fact sheet on dengue fever and
dengue hemorrhagic fever: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/dhspot98.htm
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