As if I didn't have enough trouble in my life, I literally asked for more this afternoon: I created a Spanish Google Alert for dengue.
NewsNow already supplies a lot of dengue stories, most of them in Spanish and Portuguese, and I read far more of them than I post. With my new Google Alert, I'm swamped.
Here are the items that arrived in just one alert:
Paraguay is worried about dengue, with over 340 suspected cases and 79 confirmed.
In Valladolid, Yucatan, authorities are urging families to take precautions.
Bolivia has 3,245 suspect dengue cases and 353 confirmed.
Peru is warning about dengue in connection with Holy Week travel.
Argentina is intensifying anti-dengue efforts in the north, also in connection with Holy Week. In Cordoba, the tally is two new cases, with ten suspected.
Mexico's Health Secretariat reports that between 2001 and 2009, the incidence of dengue increased by 2,949 percent thanks to climate change and the migration of mosquitoes from southern states to the north. Cases in 2001 totaled 1,781; in 2009 Mexico had 52,534 cases. Hemorrhagic dengue now accounts for one in four cases.
And those are just the reports in today's Spanish-language media; I haven't looked at Brazil since this morning.
Here's what really worries me about these stories: As far as I can tell, the English-language media around the world are paying zero attention.
Hundreds of millions of people in Latin America (plus hundreds of millions more in Africa and Asia) are contending with a very nasty disease. Its case fatality ratio isn't large, but the sheer numbers of cases must be making a brutal impact on countless communities. Public-health agencies and their workers must be stretched to the limit, trying to cope. Brazil and Sri Lanka are calling in their armed forces to help fight the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries the virus.
We in North America should recall the speed with which West Nile virus spread from Atlantic to Pacific. And we Canadians, fighting mosquitoes cross-country every spring and summer, should be especially concerned about the possible arrival of dengue here.
Well, all epidemics, like all politics, appear to be local. When dengue breaks out in Winnipeg or Saskatoon a few summers from now, our media will go crazy. Until then, who cares what's happening to our southern neighbours?
