Costa Rican authorities confirmed that first death from Dengue since 2010 and said that the virus has infected 3.505 people in the first two months of this year, some 998 more than in the same period in 2012.
The directora de Vigilancia de la Salud del Ministerio de Salud de Costa Rica, María Ethel Trejos, confirmed the death in the country since 2010, when four people died from the virus transmitted by the mosquito “Aedes Aegypti”.
Health officials identified the victim as a 50 year old woman in the province of Puntarenas (Central Pacific), dying two weeks ago. The woman’s name has not been released to the press.
Trejos said that given the few cases of Dengue reported in the provinces of Guanacaste and Puntarenas, it has made people in those places drop their guard. The Health official said that 55% of all cases this year come from those two provinces.
Of concern to Health officials is the that people are still fostering mosquito breeding in their homes, not cleaning up stagnant water, for example, that serves as a playground for mosquitoes to breed.
Dengue produces fever and flu like symptoms with body ache and pains and in most aggressive cases, even cause death. In total, 22 people have died in Costa Rica from Dengue since 1993.
Records from the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social (CCSS) indicates that in 2012 there were 26.808 cases, the fourth highest in the history of Costa Rica, surpassed by 37.214 cases in 2006, 28.687 in 2007 and 36.351 in 2010.
