Just wondering after reading about the ongoing massive increase of Dengue. Thinking more about numbers of people catching rather than its spread.
From my reading 2023 showed a massive upsurge in numbers of people and despite that upsurge it's looking like 2024 is currently at 3 times the 2023 infections. From a travellers perspective it's difficult to get an appreciation of the risks as WHO seems to provide case numbers rather than cases per number of population (ie rates).
But whilst travellers can coat themselves in insect repellant for the few months they are in the region, what do people who live in these areas do? Thinking about dengue as, whilst it's nasty, worse if you catch it a 2nd time which is where somebody spending their entire live in a region must be at far greater risk. ie in the area for a few months and worst case you'll catch it once but live there and after your first infection you still have the rest of your life risk of a 2nd infection.
I appreciate things are slowly changing now there is a vaccination but looks like the vaccination does not give good protection against C & D so you only get vaccinated after your 1st infection otherwise being vaccinated risks putting you the state where your 1st real infection causes your body to react like it's your 2nd infection (massively worse with the cytokine storm.
So wondering what locals do or how locals cope.
Ian