Over the last hours, cases of "corona-dengue" were detected in the province of Salta, in the north of Argentina, 1,600 kilometers from the city of Buenos Aires. This means patients are infected with both COVID and dengue fever.

This was confirmed by María Valdez, Paula Herrera and Adriana Jure, health officials in the government of Salta who reported that seven people have tested positive for both illnesses.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are around 390 million cases of dengue fever globally per year.

In Argentina, dengue is a disease that had a spike in early 2020. According to the Buenos Aires province government, between mid 2019 and mid 2020, more than 56 thousand cases were recorded, compared to less than 42 thousand in 2016. Experts say this surge occurs approximately every 5 years.

Dengue is a disease that also settled in Argentine regions far from the tropical zone. In fact, during the last summer, local dengue infections were confirmed in the city of Buenos Aires.

Dengue is transmitted by the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito. When the mosquito feeds on the blood of a person sick with dengue and then bites other people, it passes on the disease to them. But contagion only happens through the insect, and not between people or through objects, like coronavirus.

Translation and VO: Fernando Farías
Production: Silvana Avellaneda
Web Production: Julián Cortez