Since the start of the year, more than thousands of people in Bangladesh have died of dengue fever in the nation’s worst recorded outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease, the official figures showed.
Sunday night’s figures from the Bangladesh Directorate General of Health Services published said 1,006 people in the country had died, among more than 200,000 confirmed cases.
Be-Nazir Ahmed, the agency’s former director, told AFP that the number of casualties so far this year was higher than every previous year combined from 2000 when the country recorded its first dengue outbreak.
He added, “It’s a massive health event, both in Bangladesh and in the world,” he added.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) said last month the outbreak was “setting tremendous pressure on the health system” in Bangladesh.
Dengue is a disease endemic to tropical regions that generates high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, and, in the most severe cases, bleeding that can lead to death.
The WHO has cautioned that dengue and other diseases, generated by mosquito-borne viruses such as chikungunya, yellow fever, and Zika, are spreading rapidly and further due to climate change.
