Dengue: São Paulo records a record with more than 2 million likely cases in 2024

THE Estadão contacted the State Department of Health to comment on the data and carry out an assessment of the fight against dengue in São Paulo, but did not receive a response until the publication of this text.

Brazil faced an unprecedented dengue epidemic this year. As of Thursday, the 20th, the country had 6.6 million probable cases, according to the Ministry of Health’s data panel. Of these, 5.8 million have already been confirmed by laboratory tests.

Experts and the Ministry of Health itself predicted that 2024 would be the worst year ever faced in relation to the disease. According to them, a single reason alone cannot explain the expansion of dengue, which occurs not only in Brazil, but throughout the world. It is worth highlighting that in the Americas region, where we are, progress is faster.

Among the factors they point out are: climate change, with high temperatures and irregular rainfall, which help in the reproduction of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, the disease vector, and in the transmission of the disease; historically ineffective mosquito control measures, such as raising awareness about the elimination of breeding sites and the use of insecticides (fumacê); and that, after years, the four dengue serotypes circulate at the same time in the country.

According to the Ministry of Health, 5,900 people died from dengue this year and another 1,003 deaths are under investigation. In São Paulo, the government points to 2,005 deaths, with another 427 being investigated.

In 2015, the second year with the most cases in São Paulo, there were 504 deaths. Last year, there were 286, according to the Ministry of Health’s historical series.