With the Arrival of Summer, SP Coast has Already Registered 36,000 Cases of Dengue

12/10/2013 - 08h27

With the proximity of summer and the high season, municipalities on the São Paulo coast have adopted different strategies to try to prevent a new outbreak of dengue.

This year, the number of cases in the region jumped from last year: from 1,465 to 36,470 (until Nov. 15).

The number this year is high, but has not reached the same heights as the most recent major epidemic in 2010. The State of São Paulo confirmed the registration of 189,000 cases of dengue in 2010, a record.

Seven people have already died: three in Guarujá and São Vicente, and one in Caraguatatuba.

On the southern coast, Guarujá, São Vicente and Peruíbe are on alert, according to the Ministry of Health Index, which points to the percentage of properties infested by the mosquito carriers. In the north, the alert applies to São Sebastião and Ubatuba.

The majority of initiatives involve intensification of door-to-door visits that distribute informational materials and materials that stop the breeding of mosquitos carrying the disease.

The severity of dengue tends to be higher when a person contracts the illness two or three times, which has set off a warning sign in regions that have had recent epidemics.

"It is worrying to go through an epidemic during the high season, which is why we work with prevention. But we have the infrastructure to try to attend to patients in the best way possible," said director of health in São Sebastião Marcos Mathias.

In Guarujá, where five men from the army helped control agents to combat mosquitoes in October, it is different.

"We don't have professionals or even medications to attend to the public with excellence in a dengue epidemic during the high season," said the director of Health Surveillance in the municipality, Marco Antonio Conceição.

VIOLENCE ON THE COAST

On Saturday afternoon, a Canadian tourist was killed in an attempted robbery on the Anchieta highway in Cubatão while returning from a day on the coast.

Businessman Dean William Tiessen was accosted by thieves who were in another vehicle. He parked his vehicle, but was shot twice. According to a British friend who was traveling with him, Tiessen did not react.

Translated by JILL LANGLOIS

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	Silva Junior/Folhapress
	Municipalities on the São Paulo coast have adopted different strategies to try to prevent a new outbreak of dengue