More than 1,000 people have died from dengue fever in Bangladesh since the start of the year, according to official figures, the worst epidemic of this disease, transmitted by mosquitoes, ever recorded in the country.
Figures from the Directorate General of Health Services published on Sunday evening indicate that 1,006 people have died out of more than 200,000 confirmed cases.
According to former director of health services Be-Nazir Ahmed, the number of deaths recorded since the start of the year is more than in all previous years combined since 2000, when Bangladesh recorded its first outbreak of the disease. dengue.
“This is a major health event, both in Bangladesh and around the world,” he told AFP.
Bangladesh has recorded cases of dengue since the 1960s, but it was in 2000 that it experienced its first outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever.
Dengue is a disease endemic to tropical areas that causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain and, in the most severe cases, bleeding that can lead to death.
One hundred and twelve children under the age of 15, including infants, were counted among the dead this year, according to official figures.
The number of deaths this year eclipses the previous record in 2022 which stood at 281 deaths.
Scientists attributed the 2023 outbreak to erratic rainfall and warmer temperatures during the annual monsoon, which created ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes.
The virus that causes the disease is now endemic in Bangladesh, which has seen a trend of worsening epidemics since the turn of the century.
Most cases are recorded during the monsoon from July to September, the months that bring the vast majority of the country’s annual rainfall, as well as occasional floods and landslides.
However, in recent years, Bangladeshi hospitals have started admitting patients suffering from the disease during the winter months.
“Advanced stage” disease
Dengue wards in Dhaka’s main hospitals are currently full of patients being treated under mosquito nets, under the watchful and worried gaze of their family members.
People infected multiple times are at greater risk of complications, according to Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, a doctor at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College in Dhaka. Most of the patients admitted to his hospital have already had dengue fever two or three times.
“When someone gets dengue fever for the second, third or fourth time, the severity of the disease increases,” he explained to AFP, “the number of deaths also increases.” .
“Many come to consult us when the disease is already at an advanced stage,” he added. “Their treatment is then really complicated.”
Dengue fever and other diseases caused by mosquito-borne viruses are spreading faster and further due to climate change, the WHO has warned.
“A canary in the coal mine”
“The epidemic is putting enormous pressure on the health system” of Bangladesh, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said last month during an online press conference.
Also in September, the agency’s director of alert and response, Abdi Mahamud, said more countries would face such outbreaks with global warming and that global solidarity was needed.
This type of epidemic is like “a canary in the coal mine of the climate crisis”, he said, evoking the metaphor of the little bird which warns of a great danger.
According to him, a combination of factors, including climate change and the cyclical El Niño phenomenon, synonymous with further warming, have contributed to the emergence of serious dengue epidemics in several regions of the world, including Bangladesh and South America. .
Countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Chad, have also recently reported outbreaks, he added.