“About half of the world’s population is at risk of dengue, and dengue affects approximately 129 countries,” said Dr. Raman Velayudhan, WHO’s head of the Global Program on control of Neglected Tropical Diseases.“We estimate that about 100 to 400 million cases are reported every year. This is basically an estimate and the American region alone has reported about 2.8 million cases and 101,280 deaths.
“In some cases, especially when you get the infection for the second time, which we call a secondary infection, this can lead to severe dengue and it can be fatal too,” said Velayudhan in a recent briefing with journalists at the UN in Geneva. “In 2000, we had about half a million cases and today in 2022 we recorded over 4.2 million, which really shows an eight-fold increase.” He said that number could well increase “as we get more and more accurate figures.”
“European countries are also on alert because Europe had recorded an Aedes transmission of either dengue or chikungunya since 2010,” said Velayudhan. “We have had more outbreaks since then and it is estimated that the mosquito is present in about 22 European countries.”