Dengue Surge Grips Latin America

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: A dengue fever outbreak shows what Latin America learned from COVID-19, the BRICS+ leaders convene in Russia for the first time since adding new members, and a historic verdict is delivered against Chiquita.

Dengue Tests Health Systems

Dengue fever is an old villain in Latin America. The mosquito that carries the virus probably first traveled to the Western Hemisphere around 1500, during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. As the virus became better understood in the early 20th century, health officials in several countries led eradication campaigns that mostly centered on mosquito control.

Despite some major midcentury successes, the mosquitoes and the virus have endured. In the past decade or so, an average of around 2 million people contracted the disease annually in the Western Hemisphere, and around 1,000 people died from it, according to the United Nations’ Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Although most cases are asymptomatic or mild, at its worst, dengue can develop into a hemorrhagic fever.

But only halfway through 2024, the Americas have already recorded a record-breaking 9.3 million cases and more than 4,500 deaths, leaving health authorities scrambling to adjust. Most cases have been in South America, which already experienced its summer; PAHO has warned that North and Central America, as well as the Caribbean, should be on heightened alert during their own warmer months.

Latin America’s outbreak underscores how climate change can alter disease patterns. Scientists linked this year’s surge to warmer temperatures, which allow the primary mosquito that carries dengue, Aedes aegypti, to digest blood from their human hosts, feed, and lay eggs at a faster rate. Heavy El Niño rains also contributed to the spike, since Aedes breeds in stagnant water.

The outbreak has served as a stress test on health systems in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, Brazil publicly administered a dengue vaccine for the first time; cities in Brazil and Colombia have experimented with infecting mosquitos with a bacteria that blocks virus transmission. And researchers from Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Brazil are part of an international team building an open-source database of dengue variants—a model inspired by COVID-19 research.

Experts say one of the biggest lessons learned from that pandemic is the importance of being able to locally source medical technologies to avoid getting stuck in an international bidding war. “The public health community has organized itself more to achieve local vaccine production for various diseases,” Sergio Sosa-Estani, the Latin America director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDI), told Foreign Policy.

To that end, several health technology initiatives are already underway in Brazil. Researchers in Latin America have been working on a potential vaccine against dengue for decades, and one promising candidate from Brazil’s Butantan Institute, co-developed with the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is nearing regulatory approval. (The vaccine used this year by Brazil’s public health system was made by the Japanese firm Takeda.)

Separately, since 2022, DNDI has also worked with health institutes in the dengue-endemic countries of Brazil, Malaysia, Thailand, and India to jointly develop dengue treatments at accessible prices.

But large-scale production of dengue vaccines still may be years away. Although Brazil bought up much of Takeda’s existing supply, the amount that it purchased for 2024 is only enough to vaccinate a little more than 1 percent of the country’s population.

Furthermore, many who were first eligible for the dengue shot in Brazil did not take it. Poor government messaging could be a culprit, but some researchers blame lingering anti-vaccine sentiment encouraged by former President Jair Bolsonaro. A March survey by Datafolha found that left-wing Brazilians said they were 19 percent more likely to take the vaccine than supporters of Bolsonaro.

It appears that while some of the pandemic’s lessons have been learned, others have not.

Upcoming Events

Thursday, June 20, to Sunday, July 14: Western Hemisphere teams play in the Copa América soccer tournament.

Wednesday, July 3, to Friday, July 5: Grenada hosts the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) summit.

Monday, July 8: Paraguay hosts the Mercosur leaders’ summit.

Sunday, July 28: Venezuela is scheduled to hold presidential elections.

What We’re Following

Chiquita in court. On Monday, a Florida jury ruled that produce giant Chiquita, known for its bananas, must pay more than $38 million to families of victims for financing a Colombian paramilitary group during the country’s civil war. Chiquita paid the now-extinct United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia—designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 2001—for protection against left-wing groups, a lawyer for the victims said.

Chiquita said it plans to appeal the verdict and that “there is no legal basis for its claims.” Although Chiquita has faced hundreds of similar suits in U.S. courts, this is the first time the company was found culpable. To many legal scholars, it represents a rare example of a U.S. company being held liable for human rights violations overseas.

Peru’s copper fortunes. The rising price of copper on international markets is helping to lift Peru from its economic slump. Over the past two years, political dysfunction and protests at copper mines have contributed to an overall slowdown of the country’s economy. But as the price of copper—key in renewable energy technologies—has gone up, the World Bank this week raised Peru’s growth projection for 2024 to 2.9 percent, up from a 0.6 percent contraction in 2023.

However, the country’s political outlook continues to worry democracy and governance scholars. An unpopular Congress has stripped authority from investigators probing crime and corruption. Additionally, a government prosecutor has targeted a leading independent journalist, Gustavo Gorriti, for alleged wrongdoing in his correspondence with sources. The case has caused an uproar among press freedom advocates.

Vinícius Junior of Real Madrid celebrates after scoring the team’s third goal during the La Liga EA Sports match between UD Almería and Real Madrid in Almería, Spain, on Aug. 19, 2023.Fran Santiago/Getty Images

Litigating racism. Brazilian soccer star Vinícius Júnior won what his league called a first-of-its kind verdict against racism in Spanish professional soccer. On Monday, a Spanish court sentenced hecklers who made racist gestures toward Vinícius, who plays for Real Madrid, to eight months in prison. In Brazil, both fans and players have been arrested for such behavior, but similar incidents in Spain have gone unpunished until now.

Real Madrid’s public support for racial equality in recent years comes amid something of a political makeover. During Spain’s Franco dictatorship, it was known as the club of the political establishment—as opposed to the more rebellious Barcelona club, an emblem of Catalan identity and the independence movement.

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In Focus: BRICS Is Back

Dilma Rousseff, the former president of Brazil and the current president of the New Development Bank, attends a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, June 6.Arseny Kats/Roscongress Foundation via Reuters

This week, foreign ministers from the BRICS countries gathered in Russia for their first meeting since Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates officially joined the group in January. Other hopeful members are now courting the bloc, including Thailand, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, all of which sent senior officials to the summit.

It was also the first BRICS ministerial meeting since Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. On Monday, the group issued a joint statement on the war in Gaza, calling for an immediate release of hostages, the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on the war, and an independent Palestinian state. It also expressed “serious concern at Israel’s continued blatant disregard of international law.”

Although BRICS has long been a sounding board for grievances over the Western-led international order, its most concrete cooperation has been in finance, trade, and investment, sometimes in non-Western currencies. On this front, BRICS development bank chair Dilma Rousseff—formerly Brazil’s president—announced that the bank plans to issue its first yuan-denominated loans to countries outside of China in 2024 or 2025.

Trade in goods among BRICS countries “has considerably outpaced trade between the BRICS and G7 nations,” according to the Boston Consulting Group. Brazil took additional steps this week to continue this trend. In China, a delegation led by Brazil’s vice president said it had received some $4.5 billion in new credit guarantees and a $100 million investment pledge by vaccine maker Sinovac.

Meanwhile, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s president attended the Saudi sovereign investment fund’s first conference in Latin America, which touted Saudi investments in the Brazilian agriculture, energy, and defense sectors.