Three more dengue deaths bring total to 13

DENGUE has claimed the lives of three more people this week bringing the total in Panama since the start of the epidemic to 13.

Six of the deaths have been in January, and another seven in the closing weeks of last year.

The latest fatalities, all over 80 years of age, were in San Francisco and Bethany.
The number of cases and deaths continues to climb in spite of an intensive spraying campaign to reduce breading grounds of the Aedes aegypti mosquito which carries and transmits the often deadly disease.
Meanwhile residents of Biru Street, Paraiso (Paradise), Ancon, are complaining that their neighborhood is far from heavenly as they fear that a nearby Ministry of Education (Meduca) junk yard could be a hatchery vector Aedes aegypti.
A Meduca spokesperson said that the junked vehicles have been sprayed, but the dismantling of the vehicles for scrap is in the hands of Comptroller's Office and the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Meanwhile there has been no recent word from Tourism Manager, Salomon Shamah, who recently asked media to tone down reporting of the epidemic, as it was hurting tourism, and claimed that tour groups from Israel had canceled their visits.