The federal Health Secretary Thursday confirmed 13 deaths from dengue in the state of Jalisco, with another 26 potential fatalities from the disease still under investigation.
A total of 752 new cases were confirmed during the past week, raising the total for the year in Jalisco to 5,047. This elevates the figure to more than the combined total for 2016, 2017 and 2018, and higher than 2009, when 4,919 cases were registered in what was described as an “epidemic year.” The number of deaths in the state from dengue over the past three years was 15, according to federal health statistics.
The slow pace at which dengue stats are being released to the public has been widely criticized. This is mainly because all test results must be sent to the capital and validated by the federal Health Ministry before they are deemed official.
This week, Guadalajara hospitals and health clinics continued to be saturated with patients turning up with dengue symptoms.
The director of Guadalajara’s busiest public hospital, the Hospital Civil, said Thursday that the facility attended to 2,876 patients with dengue between June and September – 20 percent of them children.
Nationwide, 20,914 cases of dengue have been confirmed in 2019.