Brazil surpassed 4 million cases of dengue fever registered this year, according to an update from the Ministry of Health’s Arbovirus Monitoring Panel this Monday (29). In total, 4,127,571 probable cases of the disease were reported across the country in the first four months. 
As for dengue deaths, 1,937 have been confirmed and 2,345 are under investigation. The incidence rate of the disease in the country is 2,032.7 cases for every 100 thousand inhabitants.
The most affected age group is 20 to 29 years old, which accounts for the majority of cases. The least affected age group is children under 1 year old, followed by people aged 80 or over and children aged 1 to 4 years old.
The units of the Federation with the highest incidence of the disease are the Federal District, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Espírito Santo, Goiás and Santa Catarina.
Projections released at the beginning of the year indicate that dengue cases in the country could reach 4,225,885 cases.
Fighting dengue
The Ministry of Health and the government of Minas Gerais inaugurated this Monday (29), in Belo Horizonte, the Wolbachia Biofactory. The unit, managed by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), will allow Brazil to expand its production capacity for one of the main technologies in the fight against dengue and other arboviruses.
Wolbachia is a bacterium present in around 60% of insects in nature, but naturally absent in Aedes aegypti. The so-called Wolbachia method consists of inserting the bacteria into mosquito eggs in the laboratory and creating Aedes aegypti that carry the microorganism. Infected by Wolbachia, they are not able to carry the viruses that cause dengue, zika, chikungunya or yellow fever.
Art/Brazil Agency
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