Dengue hits the Americas hard and early

What happened

The Pan American Health Organization, the World Health Organization's regional offshoot, warned Thursday that dengue is walloping the Americas this year, with 3.5 million cases of the mosquito-borne virus and 1,000 deaths in three months, versus a record 4.5 million cases for all of 2023. Puerto Rico declared a dengue epidemic on Monday.

Who said what

The fast and widespread surge in dengue is "cause for concern," said PAHO Director Jarbas Barbosa. Most of the cases are in Brazil and elsewhere in South America, where it is seasonably warm and wet, but "we are also seeing an uptick in cases" in Central America and the Caribbean, "where transmission is usually higher in the second half of the year," and in places with no history of dengue.

The commentary

The dry-season spread of dengue in the Caribbean, from "people traveling" and environmental changes, "is really kind of a heads up, a warning sign," Dr. Albert Ko, a Yale epidemiologist, said to The Washington Post.

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What next?

The PAHO is urging regional and national efforts to control dengue's spread and to treat patients early so the death rate stays low.