Yuck Yuck Yuck.

I went to a funeral on Monday. It was held for a little boy, son of one of my host dad's employees. João was four years old, and liked songs about the rain. He died that Monday morning, all because of a tiny mosquito bite.
Dengue fever, the disease that killed the little boy whose funeral I attended, was first coined in 1789 by Philadelphian Benjamin Rush, but it had first been recorded in a Chinese medical encyclopedia from the Chin Dynasty (265- 420 AD). The book referred to it as a "water poison", associated with flying insects.
Dengue, also known as "breakbone fever" for its symptoms of severe joint pain, is found mostly in tropical regions. It is transmitted to humans by the mosquito Aedes Aegypti, easily identifiable by its black and white stripes. A Dengue victim suffers from a high fever, sharp pain behind the eyes, headache, joint pains, weakness, nausea and vomiting, a slowed heart rate, and, if not treated properly, death.
The first epidemics occurred at around the same time in Asia, Africa, and North America in the 1780s. A pandemic started in Southeast Asia in the 1950s, and by 1975, Dengue had become a leading cause of death among children in the area.
In Brazil specifically, Dengue has been the leading news story for weeks. Summer is ending, and Brazil is receiving a lot of rain, so the mosquitos are making themselves at home right here in our houses; on the roofs where we store water, in the gardens, in the puddles on the street.
Itabuna's situation is grave. It ranks as city with the most infected mosquitos in Bahia. This year alone has seen one thousand reported cases. Last Tuesday the 17th, mayor Azevedo declared Itabuna in a state of emergency.
Last Thursday, Azevedo began taking action in the war against Dengue by sending five trucks around the city. The trucks are armed with insecticide designed to kill the Aedes Aegypt in its adult phase.
He asks that residents open their windows and doors as the trucks pass, so as to better circulate the smoke.
The population is also asked to help the situation by keeping their houses and roofs clean, and remove flower pots, trash cans, swimming pools, anything that might prove a hospitable environment for such a deadly little bug.