Three people died from the complications of dengue fever in the city of Florida in Camagüey Province in central Cuba, according to a Diario de Cuba report (computer translated).

Image/Robert Herriman
Image/Robert Herriman

Participants in a recent epidemiological meeting said that the medical authorities of the province, the largest in the country, confirmed that there are at least seven people with the disease in Florida.

The alarm about the epidemiological panorama and the deaths was also mentioned by a delegate of the People’s Power. The unhealthiness and overcrowding in several sectors of the urban center, as well as the high temperatures of the summer increase the probabilities of generating more foci of tropical diseases.

Dengue fever is an infectious disease carried by mosquitoes and caused by any of four related dengue viruses. This disease used to be called “break-bone fever” because it sometimes causes severe joint and muscle pain that feels like bones are breaking.

People get the dengue virus from the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito. It is not contagious from person to person.

There are three types of dengue fever in order of less severe to most: the typical uncomplicated dengue fever, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHS) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS).


The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates there may be 50–100 million dengue infections worldwide every year. However, research from the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust, using cartographic approaches, estimate there to be 390 million dengue infections per year worldwide.