As of early Tuesday afternoon, there have been no confirmed cases of dengue fever this year in Porto Alegre, according to the Directorate for Health Surveillance (DVS), linked to the Municipal Health Secretariat (SMS). However, the city council registered three notices, one in the historic center, one in the far south, and one in the northeastern area of the city. The current summer season, which is added to the sequence of exceptionally hot days and the constant scarcity of rain in the capital, keeps the Aedes aegypti outbreak in check.
Last year, when there was a severe outbreak, the city received 7,320 notifications, 4,607 confirmations and four deaths. Porto Alegre monitors 910 traps weekly, spread across 46 neighborhoods, and is installed by an outside company. In the first week of 2023, at least two of them, one in Vila María da Conceição, Partenon district and the other in Santo Antonio, detected six insects that cause dengue, according to data released on the public platform “Onde Está o Aedes?”, which is maintained by Municipal.
Until today, eight endemic disease agents in Conceicao have been visiting homes within a radius of 300 meters and checking how the residents are behaving to control mosquitoes. Porto Alegre has 80 of these servers. Edson Ricardo Frédés Julio and Ermelindo da Silva López visited teacher María Salette Aníbalito and her son Gilberto Miranda da Silva Jr. on Rua Paulino Azurinha, where one of the small pieces of plastic attracted the female Aedes aegypti and left her stuck in place.
“We always try to take care of ourselves. Fortunately, we didn’t have dengue fever,” comments Maria Salette, saying that she sometimes collects some samples herself and keeps them in a small container. If the mosquito is detected, it is sent to a laboratory to check whether it has the dengue virus or not. Not far from there, the critical area of the Santo Antonio neighborhood is between Padre Antonio Vieira and São Francisco de Assis streets, in an area with lots of vacant lots, residents say, as well as piled-up trash.
According to them, some people have contracted dengue recently, and at least one of them has been hospitalised. However, everyone recovered. He is doing his bit, says retiree Gervasio Silvestre, who has lived in Padre Antonio Vieira for 24 years. “I don’t try to let water stand, and anyway, everything is really dry,” he says, working on his house. Nearby is a cell phone antenna, the terrain is tall grass, maintenance is only done once every four months, and there were some bottles on the floor.
In the neighbors, there is a pool and tires arranged in the courtyards, which are potential vectors for mosquitoes. In São Francisco de Assis, a street running parallel to the previous one, organic waste is collected three times a week, and dry waste is collected every two weeks. Retired Solange Mendez has lived there for 21 years. She says she also tries not to leave things or rubbish lying around in her yard, but complains about neglecting the dirt in front of a nearby parking lot. “I think people here are a little lazy to call the truck. There is a kind of disrespect to the situation,” he comments.
On the 4th of last month, DVS issued an alert to health professionals for suspected loboviruses, such as dengue, zika, chikungunya, especially for compatible symptoms, such as red spots on the body, headache, muscle or neck pain, pain in the back of the eyes, nausea, and vomiting. . If any of these signs are present, it is essential to seek clinical care or referral to a health service for evaluation. When returning from trekking, there is also a recommendation to eliminate sources of standing water.
DVS director Fernando Ritter predicts that this year’s first confirmations in the capital may occur in January, much earlier than in other years, when cases started in March or April. The exception to the rule was until 2022, when they started plentiful in February. “Last year, without a doubt, was the worst dengue moment in the history of Porto Alegre. There were cases in the region as far south as Cruzeiro, Restinga and Lami, places where normally there are no cases. We are really concerned,” he notes.
According to him, it is necessary for the population to practice awareness individually. “We ask for a lot of support from the community. We know there is no better job than prevention. It stems first from getting rid of standing water, especially in small containers, plant pots, dog food tanks and drains. We’re in a warm period, which helps caterpillar growth,” he says. Ritter It’s just a distraction to have focus and pollute a large number of people.
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