The dengue fever epidemic has claimed the lives of more than a thousand people in Bangladesh since January

HeyFigures from the General Directorate of Health Services in Dhaka were published on Sunday evening, indicating the death of 1,006 people out of more than 200,000 confirmed cases in the country.

According to former Director of Health Services Benazir Ahmed, the number of deaths recorded since the beginning of the year is higher than the numbers of all previous years combined since 2000, when Bangladesh recorded its first dengue epidemic.

“This is an event of great importance for health both in Bangladesh and around the world,” Bin Nazir Ahmed told AFP.

“The pandemic is putting enormous pressure on the health system” in Bangladesh, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last month at a press conference last month.

Dengue fever is a disease endemic in tropical regions that causes high fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, and, in the most serious cases, bleeding that can lead to death.

The World Health Organization has warned that dengue fever and other diseases caused by mosquito-borne viruses are spreading faster and more widely due to climate change.

Read also: Dengue fever in Bangladesh has already caused 804 deaths this year