Dengue Fever Rife in Cuba

One morning at the end of April, Párraga, a low-income community on the outskirts of Havana, awoke to the noise of trucks and construction machinery breaking up the roads.

Residents were delighted – they hoped that after repairing the major highways, they would deal with the potholes that cover the other roads in the area. Standing water in the potholes is an ideal breeding ground for the mosquitos which transmit dengue fever.

However, once the main roads had been resurfaced, the roadwork machines left.

“All the residents were really happy… we’d been asking the government to do something for our community for years,” Párraga resident Miriam said. “The roads are completely run-down, full of potholes with water, and impassable for vehicles and for those of us who live here. It was so disappointing when we saw that after a few weeks, they gathered up… their equipment and left, having only fixed the main highways. They left our roads in the same condition as before. They’ve been falling apart for over ten years.”

Dengue fever originally from Africa, is now common in parts of Latin America along with the yellow fever mosquitos (Aedes aegypti) which transmit it.

In August , the Inter Press Service news agency quoted the Cuban health ministry as saying mosquito infestation had reached “critical” level in 23 municipalities in the country, 15 of them in Havana province. No details were provided about the number or severity of cases. .

The Cuban government does not report the number of dengue cases to the Pan-American Health Organisation, but independent journalists in the country say hundreds of people have been hospitalised with the disease this year, at least five of them have died.

“A group of residents have been to the People’s Authority [local council] several times to demand a solution to our problem,” Miriam said. “They promise over and over again that they’ll send an inspector to assess the state of the roads, which fill with water when it rains and are a guaranteed breeding-ground for mosquitos.”

According to a local doctor who did not want to be identified, “Emergency staff at the polyclinic in Párraga attend to three to five patients with dengue symptoms on a daily basis.”

One resident said he had been told by a worker from the government’s Campaign Against Vectors that he was in Párraga to reinforce local efforts to combat the mosquitos.

“[Párraga] is a source of dengue and it’s rumoured that deaths continue. Although we can’t confirm the precise number, we know the authorities are alarmed. They have us working non-stop,” he quoted the health worker as saying. 

Yaimí Alfonso Miret  is an independent journalist in Cuba.