New Delhi: Peru is battling the worst dengue outbreak in the country’s history with over 200,000 cases being reported so far and more than 200 fatalities recorded so far. The outbreak has been attributed to torrential rains and mosquitoes caused by El Niño climate phenomenon.
A Fox News report quoted a Peru health ministry official as saying that El Niño—a natural climate phenomena—was one of the key drivers behind the surge in dengue cases in the South American nation. The officials have warned that the situation could intensify further as more torrential rains are predicted, which will bring disease-carrying vectors along.
El Niño fuels tropical cyclones in the Pacific region by warming oceans and weather across the world in a cyclical fashion. The annual warming boosts rainfall and increases the risk of floods in the region. The accumulation of water in cities, caused by increased rainfall boosts the reproduction of mosquitoes, bringing vector-borne diseases like dengue fever, malaria and others along with them.
Health officials in Peru have issued advisories and are prohibiting people from storing still water in open containers in hopes to prevent reproduction of mosquitoes and eliminate breeding grounds for vectors, according to the Fox News report.
“Dengue kills. Because of that, help me eliminate mosquito breeding sites,” Health Minister Rosa Gutiérrez said in a statement on Tuesday, as per the report.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on June 8, Thursday, announced that El Niño is now underway, replacing the much cooler La Niña pattern, which dominated for the past three years.
El Niño is a cyclical warming of weather and oceans, globally, which triggers tropical cyclones in the Pacific region, leading to increased rainfall in surrounding areas.
According to weather scientists, El Niño looks “particularly worrying” this year and is expected to be at par with the strong 2016 El Niño, which saw the hottest year on record across the globe.
“We’re in unprecedented territory,” Michelle L’Heureux, a meteorologist with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center was quoted as saying in the report.
On Thursday, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte declared a two-month long “state of emergency” in 18 of the South American country’s 24 regions to allow swift official action for “imminent danger from heavy rainfall” this year and next, the report said.
She said the dengue figures are the highest since 2017 when 68,290 cases and 89 deaths were recorded.
Dengue, a tropical vector-borne disease caused by the aedes aegypti mosquito, can result in high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pain, and even death in extreme cases.
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