In the first five weeks of 2024, over 364,000 cases of dengue infection have been reported, according to the country’s health ministry, which is a 400 percent increase from the same period in 2023.

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“The World Health Organization (WHO) director-general, Tedros Adhanom, visiting Brasília on Wednesday, said this dengue outbreak has been fuelled by the El Niño phenomenon that brought increased rainfall in Brazil.

“This current dengue outbreak is part of a large global increase in dengue fever with over 500m cases and over 5,000 deaths reported last year from 80 countries in every region of the world except Europe,” he said at a ministry event.

South America is seeing a surge in cases of dengue during the southern hemisphere summer, exacerbated by rising temperatures and the El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific that contribute to prolonged dengue seasons and spread of infections, scientists say.