The federal government of Mexico has not purchased insecticides to battle the mosquito that causes dengue, and deaths from the disease have increased by 250% this year alone.
During the first five months of 2019, 42 people have died due to dengue, when in 2018 there were 12 deaths due to this disease.
21,776 cases of dengue have been recorded so far this year, four times more than the previous year, when there were 5,711 confirmed cases in the first five months of 2018.
More than 8 thousand cases this year are listed as “dengue with warning signs” and “severe dengue”, this is twice the number of alarming or serious cases accumulated in 2018, according to the weekly epidemiological reports from the federal Ministry of Health.
Despite this, the federal authorities have not purchased any of the insecticides required for fumigation and control of this disease, transmitted by mosquito bites.
The National Center for Preventive Programs and Disease Control has a budget of $192 million pesos for the acquisition of the necessary pesticides for its epidemiological surveillance program.
Of these resources, at the end of May, no money from of the budget had been spent, according to the records of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health.
This program has the objective of generating an “opportune diagnosis of diseases such as tuberculosis, leprosy, dengue, malaria, Chagas”, among other diseases, to undertake monitoring the required actions, for the benefit of “the vulnerable population in the country”.
In 2017, the acquisition of pesticides for the fumigation of vulnerable communities was carried out by the Ministry of Health in March, and in 2018 the purchase was made at the beginning of May. In both years, the authorities acquired insecticides and larvicides.
Up until May 29, 2019, the National Center for Preventive Programs and Disease Control, Cenaprece, had only used its budget to contract printing, packaging and import services and, as stated in the National Platform for Transparency, has not made any purchases for the control of vector-borne diseases, that is, diseases that can pass from animals to humans.
According to the latest report on the national epidemiological panorama of dengue, related to the last week of May, 75 percent of cases registered to date are concentrated in Quintana Roo, Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas and Jalisco.
Jalisco announced the plan to fumigate 70 hectares in Puerto Vallarta. However, records of acquisitions do not account for the purchase of the insecticide necessary to carry out the announced fumigation work.
