Published Friday, April 17, 2020 

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

In addition to sanitary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus covid-19 in the country, on Thursday the Ministry of Health made a call to the population to increase sanitation measures to clean places where it can harbor the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the agent transmitter of dengue.

Dengue is a viral infection transmitted by the bite of an infected female Aedes mosquito. There are four distinct serotypes of the dengue virus: DEN 1, DEN 2, DEN 3 and DEN 4. Symptoms appear in 3–14 days, an average 4–7 days, after the infected bite. Dengue fever is a flu-like illness that affects infants, young children and adults.

There is no specific treatment for dengue fever. Severe dengue is potentially lethal, but early clinical diagnosis and careful clinical management by experienced physicians and nurses often saves lives.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 70% of the disease burden is in South-East Asia and the Western Pacific. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the incidents and severity of disease have increased rapidly in recent years.

According to the ministry, the mosquito multiplies even more during the rainy season, causing an increase in cases of dengue infections.

Costa Rica is a tropical country due to how close it is to the Equator. The climate is divided into two periods, a dry season, known as high-sunny season, and a rainy period, a so-called green season.

The sunny season runs from December to May and the green season from May to November.

According to statistics provided by the ministry, even though we are still in the sunny season, from January to March, 1,760 cases of dengue have been registered in the country. During the same period in 2019, there were 542 cases. So this year the number of infected people has tripled.

The regions with the most cases are the Caribbean zone with 590 cases and the North zone with 241 cases.

There are no recorded deaths from dengue.

"We are in a difficult moment where the country faces covid-19, but unfortunately, the other diseases continue their cycle, that is why we call on the population to help us at home, with the elimination of places where mosquitoes reproduce,” said Rodrigo Marín, a representative of the ministry.

The authorities continue to carry out control and mitigation work on the sites where the mosquito breeds, but it isn’t enough. Authorities call on the population to remove all objects that could contain rainwater to avoid mosquito reproduction.

Specialists recommend clean open areas and avoid having dirty tires, containers, buckets and drinking containers for pets and trash cans around. They also recommend wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants to avoid mosquito bites, as well as using mosquito nets on doors and windows.

Also, always apply mosquito repellent to exposed skin.

Dengue and covid-19 are both rapidly claiming lives. One has been around far longer. The other is new and there’s no real medicine to combat it.


On Thursday the authorities confirmed an increase of 16 new patients infected with the virus, increasing the total to 642 cases in the country.

Of the infected patients, 16 are being treated in public hospitals, where 11 of them have been reported in intensive care with delicate health conditions.

It was reported 131 infected patients are Social Security employees.

The patients' ages range from 1 to 87 with an average age of 37. Of those, 28 are children under the age of 13, 583 are between 18 and 70 years old, and 31 are elder patients over the age of 70.

Of those infected, 308 are women (47%) and 334 are men (53%). It was reported 51 foreigners are infected. Authorities stopped informing about the specific nationality of those patients.

It is reported that 74 coronavirus patients have fully recovered, according to the Inciensa Laboratory, in charge of managing the medical test to confirm or rule out the virus. They collect samples to declare patients' recovery or not.

"Sometimes it takes up to four covid-19 tests per person to declare a patient as fully recovered," stated the Lab in its statement. A person is declared fully recovered until two covid-19 medical tests come out negative.

The country has had four deaths of covid-19 so far. Two reported this month and two more reported in March.

According to a brief summary of the most recent death, an 84-year-old Costa Rican man tested positive of being infected with covid-19 on April 1. He was admitted into intensive care at San Juan de Dios Hospital on April 5. The patient suffered from high blood pressure. His pre-existing illness plus his age played major risk factors for contracting covid-19, said the ministry.

This is the second death reported this month.

The first was a 45-year-old Costa Rican who entered the country from the U.S. in March, where it is presumed that he was infected. He was hospitalized for 10 days in the intensive care unit of the same hospital, San Juan de Dios, in San José.

The two other patients died in March. They were hospitalized in intensive care at San Rafael Hospital in Alajuela Province, both 87-years-old.

Since the virus was first reported in the country on March 6, 709 people have been ruled out.


For a daily updated number of patients infected in each district throughout the country, visit the Covid-19 map of the UNED University.

As of today 2,151,199 people have been confirmed infected worldwide. The pandemic has killed 143,725 patients and 540,684 patients made a full recovery, according to recent statistics reported by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.


-----------------------------
Have you heard about people infected with dengue in your community?  We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com