May 1981-October 10, 1981: Cuba Overcomes Dengue Fever Epidemic

In May 1981 dengue fever appears in the Cuban population, becoming an epidemic by mid-June 1981. It is not known how the disease was introduced to the island, but in his annual speech on July 26, Fidel Castro suggests that the Cuban population was intentionally infected by the US. He will later claim in 1984 that some “counterrevolutionaries confessed to having carried out biological operations against Cuba at that time.” To combat the illness, the Ministry of Public Health launches a country-wide campaign to clean up all potential breeding places for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the carrier of the disease. Everyone is asked to participate in the effort. The last case of dengue fever is reported on October 10, 1981. During the five-month outbreak, a total of 344,203 cases were reported. Of those, only 158 were fatal. More than 116,000 people were hospitalized. “No government in the Third World and few in the developed countries could have achieved as much as rapidly as the Cubans did, because most lack this national capacity to mobilize,” writes author Julie M. Feinsilver. [Feinsilver, 1993, pp. 85-90]