Newsroom Agência Brasil

Rio de Janeiro – The number of cases of dengue registered in the first four months of 2012 in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro has reached 75% of the total number of cases registered in all of 2011.

According to the Municipal Secretariat of Health, between January and April this year, a total of 59,435 cases of dengue were registered. In all of 2011, there were 78,861 cases.

Meanwhile, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, there were notifications of 76,064 cases of suspected dengue between January 1 and April 28, this year.

[The state of Rio de Janeiro covers 43,305 square kilometers with a population of over 13 million. The city/municipality of Rio de Janeiro has 6.4 million inhabitants]

The superintendent of Epidemic Control (“Vigilância Epidemiológica”), Márcio Garcia, is optimistic that the peak of dengue cases has passed. “We are working conscientiously and carefully. We continue in a state of maximum alert because we are dealing with an epidemic. We expect that in May the number of cases will begin to fall. Dengue is climatic, it is a rainy season disease. With the arrival of autumn [in the southern hemisphere], there will be fewer Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.”

So far this year, there have been 13 dengue deaths. During previous dengue epidemics in Rio de Janeiro, there were 34 deaths in 2001, 62 deaths in 2002, and 140 in 2008.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - Rio já registra nos quatro primeiros meses do ano mais da metade de todos os casos de dengue de 2011