Brasilia, March 13 (IANS): Brazil has issued a dengue warning for at least 340 cities amid fears of an outbreak.
By March 7, the number of registered dengue cases reached 224,100, a 162 percent increase year-on-year, Health Minister Arthur Chioro said on Thursday.
While the infection rate of the mosquito-borne disease has sharply risen, its fatality rate dropped by 31.5 percent, resulting in a total of 76 deaths in 2015, Xinhua quoted the minister as saying.
Twenty-six state capitals, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Belo Horizonte, have been put on alert for a possible outbreak.
Another mosquito-borne disease affecting Latin America, chikungunya, has affected 1,049 people in Brazil by March 7.
The total number of Chikungunya cases registered in 2014 was 2,773.
The health ministry has provided the state health secretariats with 150 million reals (about $50 million) to combat the diseases.