Brazil on Monday officially surpassed its all-time record of deaths by dengue fever in a single calendar year.
The Health Ministry’s online dashboard monitoring the dengue emergency registered 1,116 deaths by this afternoon, topping the 1,094 deaths recorded in the entirety of 2023. Another 1,807 deaths were under investigation.
Brazil has also recorded over 2.9 million probable infections, making the 2024 outbreak the worst on record in any calendar year — by a large margin. Per the government’s estimates, a worst-case scenario that looks increasingly close to materializing could see the tally top the 4.2 million mark. That number would be close to the 2023 total for all the Americas, per the Pan-American Health Organization.
In February, the Health Ministry started a dengue vaccination campaign, becoming the first country in the world to do so. Officials have struggled with the low number of doses sold by pharmaceutical company Takeda, as well as low demand for the vaccine. For now, the vaccine is offered only to children and teenagers aged 10 to 14, a major target of the far-right’s anti-vaccine discourse.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva received an influenza shot at a public ceremony this Monday. The Takeda dengue vaccine so far is not recommended for people over 60, and Lula is 78.
Health Minister Nísia Trindade said during the ceremony at the presidential palace that “technical issues” need to be addressed before Takeda’s dengue vaccine can be produced locally in Brazil, and that the country has struggled with the “exponential rise” in the number of cases.
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