The number of dengue cases worldwide has been increasing over the past five years, with a particularly alarming situation in the Americas this year, according to a new report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday.
More than 7 million cases of dengue fever were reported in the Americas up to April this year, significantly exceeding the 4.5 million cases reported in 2023 as a whole, according to the report.
"Given the current scale of the dengue outbreaks, the potential risk of further international spread and the complexity of factors impacting transmission, the overall risk at the global level is still assessed as High and thus dengue remains a global threat to public health," the WHO said.
Dengue is a life-threatening viral disease spread by mosquitoes in tropical and subtropical regions. By the end of April, the WHO received reports of 7.6 million cases from across 90 countries, including parts of southern Europe. A total of 3.4 million cases have been confirmed.
Over 16,000 of those cases have resulted in serious illness, and 3,000 have been fatal, according to the WHO. Some people show no symptoms, while in severe cases, dengue can cause severe bleeding and organ damage.
Many countries lack surveillance capacity, which leads the WHO to believe that the real figure is much higher.