Hospitals and health clinics in Guadalajara, as well as Red and Green Cross facilities, are feeling the strain as staff attend to an ever growing number of patients turning up with dengue fever symptoms.
Thursday, Health Secretary Fernando Petersen updated the official dengue count in Jalisco to 4,290, with 25,833 “probable” cases and two deaths. Another 31 deaths that could be related to dengue fever are being investigated, he said. This means September has seen an astonishing 300-percent spike in dengue infections.
The real dengue figure is probably at least ten times (or more) higher than the official number, some health experts say, partly because the count fails to include most patients attended to by private physicians, and many sufferers foolishly choose to self-medicate.
The situation in Guadalajara is bordering on the intolerable. Waiting times for patients to see medics at IMSS and other public hospitals can be as long as five or six hours.
A nurse at one Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) clinic in Guadalajara told the Reporter this week that she reckoned 85 percent of patients seeking treatment during the past week had dengue symptoms.
Twenty of the 24 beds in the emergency ward at Guadalajara’s Hospital Civil were filled with patients with dengue symptoms, the facility’s director confirmed.
With beds in short supply, patients at IMSS hospitals are having to receive treatment while seated in wheelchairs along corridors.
Laboratories affiliated with public hospitals are unable to cope with the large number of blood samples they are being asked to test. Because of the long wait for the results, patients who can afford it are being advised to get the test done privately.
Dengue often begins with high fever, severe headaches with characteristic pain behind the eyes, intense joint and muscle pain, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, skin rash or bruising. One patient, Maria del Carmen Farias, told this newspaper that her symptoms included severe pain in the head, back, shoulder and neck areas, plus an intense fever. Subsequent tests showed her blood platelet level to be low and she was hospitalized for three days before being discharged. She has yet to learn whether she contracted the milder form of dengue, or the more aggressive dengue hemorrhagic fever, which can provoke internal bleeding and be fatal in some cases.
Guadalajara city councilors from the Morena Party accused state authorities of trying to conceal the real dengue figures, calling for Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro to declare an “epidemic alert” and dismiss “ineffective” Health Secretary Fernando Petersen.
Wednesday, the Jalisco Health Department (SSJ) issued an “aviso epidemiológico” (epidemic warning), a measure most local politicians feel does not go far enough. An “altera epidemiológica” (epidemic alert) is considered far more serious and an acceptance that the spread of the virus has gotten out of control.
Petersen said emergency funding of 100 million pesos has been earmarked to help control outbreaks in specific neighborhoods of Guadalajara – many of them in the northern part of the metropolitan area – and other parts of Jalisco where high numbers of dengue cases have been confirmed.
The updated figures mean that Jalisco is now close to Veracruz as the state with the most dengue cases.
Although the Jalisco Education Secretary confirmed there has been no noticeable increase in school absenteeism due to the dengue spike, several Guadalajara neighborhoods, including Huentitan, Rancho Nuevo and Santa Cecilia, have reported alarmingly high numbers of children infected with the virus.
As SSJ brigades spread out across the city (and other regions of the state) to fumigate high-risk zones, research shows that such eradication methods are usually not sustainable in the long-term. Alfaro urged residents to stay alert for any sign of standing water in and around their homes, the places where dengue carrying mosquitos like to breed. Even a bottle top containing a small amount of water can be a breeding ground, experts say.