Niece just returned from Brazil--caught Dengue Fever
 

Just a note to those traveling to Brazil. My niece was in Fortaleza and then headed to Sao Paulo to attend "Fashion Week" in mid June. She had a great time, but immediately upon arrival home, she fell seriously ill. She was diagnosed by the infectious disease specialist at a university medical center with having Dengue fever. She is OK now and getting back to normal, but was horribly sick and was treated symptomatically with oral steroids and hydration.

Since she was mostly in the cities and attending fashion shows, she (unfortunately) didn't think much about insect repellant.

Word to the wise: after brushing your teeth in the morning in Brazil, put on insect repellent, even if you are just going to meetings in the city.

mdtravelhealth.com Brazil and Argentina Dengue outbreaks

many seasonal eipdemics of Dengue or "BoneBreak" fever

in cities... mozzies breed in standing water in inner cities

cutteradvanced.com always wise in Dengue season.

Brushing your teeth with bottled water always wise too...

Food and water precautions are the most important there

a far more common cause of disability than Dengue

Thanks for the heads up.

Sorry to hear about your niece, an important reminder that dengue is a risk in big cities which don't attend to mosquito eradication programs.

Case in point Iquitos.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-..._b_831814.html

Poor thing! We've had a few outbreaks of Dengue in Honolulu, so it isn't just a third world thing.

The prospects of contracting dengue are relatively small in most urban areas, at least the ones tourists are likely to stay in or visit. That said there's an outbreak each year in many large cities and there are regular eradication programs. You can catch it in quite a few developed parts of the world as the poster above observed.

As it happens Australian scientists have discovered a break through vaccination against the disease, that's undergoing clinical trials but it will be some time before that's available.

We have had outbreaks of Dengue in Northern Australia also.

One scientist said it's humans that are the carriers, they infect the mosquitoes, not the other way around!

It's an urban disease as much as anything, since the mossies implicated like to live around houses.

Rio is also having a major out break.