Image courtesy of mcgmatt on Flickr, CC
At this time of year, it is dengue season in Brazil, and the city of São Joaquim da Barra recently experienced a child death due to dengue fever. According to an EpiCore responder from Brazil, since the beginning of the year, the city recorded 113 suspected dengue cases and 36 confirmed cases.
On January 22nd, 2019, a data analyst from HealthMap reported on media sources informing the public about a suspected dengue death in a nine-year-old girl named Gabrielly Cristina Rissato, from São Joaquim da Barra, Brazil. The death occurred on Monday morning of January 21st, 2019 at Santa Casa de Franca, where the child was referred as a patient after her parents took her to São Joaquim de Barra UPA (Emergency Care Unit) when she began feeling ill the week before her death. At São Joaquim de Barra UPA, she passed all medical tests, but fell unconscious on January 20th, and was then referred to Santa Casa de Franca with cardiorespiratory arrest, where she died early on Monday morning. After reading these reports about a suspected dengue death in Brazil, the data analyst requested an update and confirmation on the incident via the EpiCore project platform.
The request for more information (RFI) about the incident received one response from an EpiCore responder located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The responder provided confirmation on the occurrence of the event and information regarding available updates. It was confirmed that the child case death on January 21st in São Joaquim da Barra was due to hemorrhage complications from dengue fever. The child died after cardiac arrest in Santa Casa de Franca, with the family claiming medical negligence in the UPA of in São Joaquim. A second dengue death in a 79-year-old female was confirmed on January 22nd, with both cases having been patients in the same hospital. The head of in São Joaquim da Barra Health Surveillance, Marcos Guedes, stated that reports and test results on both patients would be released later the following week.
Based on the EpiCore response and updates, the dengue health incident in in São Joaquim da Barra, Brazil was verified as positive and confirmed. HealthMap will continue to keep you informed on future outbreaks and infectious diseases through its disease surveillance work in collaboration with EpiCore, featured here on Disease Daily as the RFI series. Until next time.
