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On Wednesday 28, Peru launched a national epidemiological alert, with door-to-door inspections, after detecting the first case of diphtheria in 20 years in Lima, amid efforts to contain the novel coronavirus.
“O Hospital 2 de Mayo [de Lima] immediately identified and notified the case to Epidemiology, “Deputy Health Minister Luis Suárez said during a press conference.
The patient is a five-year-old girl from the center of Lima. In the neighborhood, health authorities, accompanied by military patrols, have begun to carry out preventive house-by-house checks to identify other possible cases and vaccinate residents, both adults and children.
“50 brigades, consisting of a doctor and a nurse, have been mobilized to find out if there are other suspects or people who may have the disease,” Alfredo Centurión, director of health networks in Lima Center, told AFP.
“As a second goal, people get vaccinated, especially children who don’t have an up-to-date vaccination schedule. We are vaccinating a 130-block sector around the girl’s residence, “he added.
The girl lives with her family in La Victoria, a neighborhood populated by many industries, businesses and 200,000 inhabitants, near the historic center of the Peruvian capital. There is Gamarra, a well-known textile emporium in Peru.
“We are on high alert to extend vaccination where necessary if other similar cases occur,” Centurión said.
The girl, hospitalized but stable, belongs to a family in the Amazon, living in Lima for a year.
She had been vaccinated against diphtheria at birth but received no booster doses. Therefore, “she is an unvaccinated girl,” the deputy minister said.
Suárez recalled that the last case of the disease – which mainly affects the pharynx and can be fatal in 10% of patients – was recorded in 2000.
The deputy minister explained that diphtheria causes, in general, “whitish plaques in the upper respiratory tract”, with “high fever, painful swallowing”.
Almost three months ago, the Pan American Health Organization (OPS) warned that the covid-19 pandemic had a “devastating impact” on health care in Latin America and the Caribbean and that there had been a measles outbreak in Brazil and diphtheria cases in Haiti and Venezuela.
On that occasion, the APHO noted that, due to the new coronavirus, routine vaccination campaigns have been suspended, problems with attention to pregnancy and non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes, have occurred. in addition to shortcomings of medicines to treat HIV and tuberculosis.
The case of diphtheria was detected when Peru recorded 892,000 cases and 34,000 deaths from covid-19, amid a slow but steady reduction in new infections and deaths just over two months ago.
On Wednesday, the Peruvian government decided to extend the state of health emergency due to the pandemic for one month, until the end of November, which includes a ban on meetings.
Source: Yahoo Brazil
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