COVID-19 and dengue: Pushing the peruvian health care system over the edge

Unfortunately, the country was already facing a nationwide state of emergency due to an outbreak of Dengue fever that started in October 2019. [...]in early 2020, the Ministry of Health (MINSA) had already reported an incidence of 7.83 cases/100,000 inhabitants [2], and, by the end of the first trimester, the confirmed cases were above 10,000 (Table 1). [...]COVID-19 and dengue could be hard to distinguish because they also share some clinical and laboratory characteristics [3]. [...]the healthcare management of patients with any of these diseases represents a real challenge (and we cannot rule out that the number of dengue-related deaths is underestimated). Data sources included weekly and national surveillance reports from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Ministry of Health, Peru), and daily reports published in the Peruvian Digital Platform Gob.pe.