Rio Grande do Sul reaches 60 deaths from dengue this year – 04/09/2024 – Health

Rio Grande do Sul reached 60 deaths from dengue this year, with the confirmation of three new deaths from the disease. The number already exceeds the 54 deaths resulting from the disease throughout 2023.

“Rio Grande do Sul has been experiencing in the last three years, and this year in particular, its worst epidemic. We have already surpassed the accumulated incidence of the year 2022, which was the highest in terms of cases”, said Tani Ranieri, head of DVE (Division of Epidemiological Surveillance) of the state.

On March 12, the Rio Grande do Sul government declared a state of public health emergency. To date, RS has 51,331 confirmed cases of dengue, exceeding the 38,648 cases registered from January to December 2023.

The number of deaths and cases that occurred from January to the first week of April are already the second highest recorded in Rio Grande do Sul. In 2022, there were 66 deaths and 66,812 confirmations of the disease. Before that, the record number of notifications was in 2021, with 11 deaths and 9,803 cases.

In Porto Alegre, there are already 1,526 confirmed cases between January and the beginning of April, compared to 956 in the same period last year. The number of notifications of suspicious occurrences sent to the Communicable Disease Surveillance Team of the Municipal Health Department (SMS) also increased, from 1,973 last year to 15,178 now.

Evelise Tarouco, director of Health Surveillance in Porto Alegre, says that the city council intensified the operation to combat dengue in December, taking into account unfavorable forecasts from the Ministry of Health and the behavior of the disease in 2023 in the city.

“There were very few weeks in 2023 that we didn’t have any cases. So it was already predicted, also considering the weather phenomena, temperature, humidity and rain, that we would have a much worse scenario this year.”

Another challenge is raising awareness among a population that is not familiar with dengue. The disease is a recent challenge for the people of Rio Grande do Sul: the first death resulting from the disease in the state’s history was recorded in 2015.

Therefore, part of the strategies of the state government and the city of Porto Alegre includes the qualification of the assistance structure. The State Department of Health (SES) provided a clinical management platform aimed at health professionals to assist in identifying suspected cases and classifying risk.

Ranieri, from DVE, states that the RS government has been trying to “train the network, through the primary care department, so that there is no negligence in recognizing the most serious cases at the time of care”.

“This is one of the factors that we have observed, that some deaths are associated with what we can call a lack of assistance”, he says.

According to her, the state network is not yet accustomed to dengue fever as in some other states in Brazil where epidemics are recurrent, and health teams have more experience with the disease. Therefore, there is an initiative to offer classes and lives to qualify professionals.

According to Ranieri, a lack of habit with the disease can lead to errors such as inadequate hydration of a critically ill patient, increasing the risk of death from hypovolemic shock — excessive loss of blood or fluids.

“Hydration needs to be much more robust, and sometimes the health service does not do it correctly, is not up to date with clinical management protocols, and this also often ends up harming recovery”, he states.

In Porto Alegre, the city hall expanded the hours for surveillance and chemical combat actions, and established a strategy to combat dengue in hospitals, basic health units and emergency rooms, in addition to the city’s pharmacy chains.

“We have a reality in which pharmacies also receive patients to carry out rapid tests, so we made this move preparing the care network to receive suspected cases”, says Evelise Tarouco.