According to officials, dengue fever is becoming more prevalent in Mali, posing a fresh risk to the country in West Africa, which is already dealing with political unrest and extremist attacks.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Dr. Cheick Amadou Tidiane Traore, director general of health and public hygiene, stated that as of Monday, his agency had recorded 600 cases and 21 deaths from the illness.
Dengue is a virus that primarily causes flu-like symptoms and is transmitted by mosquitoes. Severe cases may result in bleeding, enlarged glands, joint pain, and even death. The World Health Organization has recommended two vaccines for countries that experience frequent outbreaks, but there is no specific treatment for this condition.
The Mali government has not made any official statistics regarding the illness public or disclosed if it has made a request for assistance from the World Health Organization.
A new dengue fever epidemic runs the risk of exacerbating the humanitarian situation, particularly among the substantial number of displaced people in a country undergoing political upheaval and confronted with the threat of fighters affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.
“Dengue fever is also present in Burkina Faso and Senegal, and we need to raise public awareness,” Traore stated.
Although the virus usually appears in more tropical settings, it was initially found in 2008 in Mali, which is a relatively arid country. The virus was reported to have resurfaced in 2017 and 2019. Long-term data on its prevalence are scarce.
Chad, which is situated in the large Sahel region south of the Sahara desert like Mali, reported having experienced its first-ever dengue outbreak in August, with the government citing dozens of confirmed cases.
Other than Bangladesh, where there have been over 300,000 cases and 4 million infections of dengue this year, the WHO has reported record dengue cases in the Americas.
