DHAKA: Bangladesh is experiencing a surge in dengue cases and deaths, with health experts warning that August could bring an even more severe outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease if urgent action is not taken.
Dengue has killed 101 people and infected 24,183 so far this year, official data showed, placing a severe strain on the country’s already overstretched health care system.
A sharp rise in fatalities has accompanied the spike in cases. Nineteen people have already died of dengue so far in August, following 41 deaths in July — more than double June’s 19 fatalities.
“The situation is critical. The virus is already widespread across the country, and without aggressive intervention, hospitals will be overwhelmed,” said Kabirul Bashar, an entomologist at Jahangirnagar University.
“August could see at least three times as many cases as July, with numbers potentially peaking in September.”
Health officials are urging people to use mosquito repellents, sleep under nets, and eliminate stagnant water where mosquitoes breed.
“We need coordinated spraying and community clean-up drives, especially in high-risk zones,” Bashar said.
Experts say climate change, along with warm, humid weather and intermittent rain, has created ideal breeding conditions for Aedes mosquitoes, the carriers of the dengue virus.
While Dhaka remains a major hotspot, dengue is peaking across the country. Large numbers of infections are being reported from outside the capital, adding pressure to rural health care facilities with limited capacity to treat severe cases.
Doctors warn that early medical attention is critical. Severe abdominal pain, vomiting, bleeding, or extreme fatigue should prompt immediate hospital visits to reduce the risk of complications or death.
With the peak dengue season still ahead, health experts have stressed that community participation, alongside government-led mosquito control, will be critical in preventing what could become one of Bangladesh’s worst outbreaks in years. The deadliest year on record was 2023, with 1,705 deaths and more than 321,000 infections reported.
Bangladesh dengue deaths top 100, August could be worse
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Bangladesh dengue deaths top 100, August could be worse
- Dengue has killed 101 people and infected 24,183 so far this year, official data showed, placing a severe strain on the country’s already overstretched health care system
- Experts say climate change, along with warm, humid weather and intermittent rain, has created ideal breeding conditions for Aedes mosquitoes, the carriers of the dengue virus
DR Congo’s amputees bear scars of years of conflict
- More than 800 people with wounds from weapons, mines or unexploded ordnance have been treated in centers supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross in the eastern DRC this year
GOMA: They survived the bombs and bullets, but many lost an arm or a leg when M23 fighters seized the city of Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo nearly a year ago.
Lying on a rug, David Muhire arduously lifted his thigh as a carer in a white uniform placed weights on it to increase the effort and work the muscles.
The 25-year-old’s leg was amputated at the knee — he’s one of the many whose bodies bear the scars of the Rwanda-backed M23’s violent offensive.
Muhire was grazing his cows in the village of Bwiza in Rutshuru territory, North Kivu province, when an explosive device went off.
He lost his right arm and right leg in the blast, which killed another farmer who was with him.
Fighting had flared at the time in a dramatic escalation of a decade-long conflict in the mineral-rich region that had seen the M23 seize swathes of land.
The anti-government M23 is one of a string of armed groups in the eastern DRC that has been plagued by internal and cross-border violence for three decades, partly traced back to the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
Early this year, clashes between M23 fighters and Congolese armed forces raged after the M23 launched a lightning offensive to capture two key provincial capitals.
The fighting reached outlying areas of Muhire’s village — within a few weeks, both cities of Goma and Bukavu had fallen to the M23 after a campaign which left thousands dead and wounded.
Despite the signing in Washington of a US-brokered peace deal between the leaders of Rwanda and the DRC on December 4, clashes have continued in the region.
Just days after the signing, the M23 group launched a new offensive, targeting the strategic city of Uvira on the border with the DRC’s military ally Burundi.
More than 800 people with wounds from weapons, mines or unexploded ordnance have been treated in centers supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the eastern DRC this year.
More than 400 of them were taken to the Shirika la Umoja center in Goma, which specializes in treating amputees, the ICRC said.
“We will be receiving prosthetics and we hope to resume a normal life soon,” Muhire, who is a patient at the center, told AFP.
- ‘Living with the war’ -
In a next-door room, other victims of the conflict, including children, pedalled bikes or passed around a ball.
Some limped on one foot, while others tried to get used to a new plastic leg.
“An amputation is never easy to accept,” ortho-prosthetist Wivine Mukata said.
The center was set up around 60 years ago by a Belgian Catholic association and has a workshop for producing prostheses, splints and braces.
Feet, hands, metal bars and pins — entire limbs are reconstructed.
Plastic sheets are softened in an oven before being shaped and cooled. But too often the center lacks the materials needed, as well as qualified technicians.
Each new flare-up in fighting sees patients pouring into the center, according to Sylvain Syahana, its administrative official.
“We’ve been living with the war for a long time,” he added.
Some 80 percent of the patients at the center now undergo amputation due to bullet wounds, compared to half around 20 years ago, he said.
“This clearly shows that the longer the war goes on, the more victims there are,” Syahana said.
