Dengue fever, also known as breakbone fever, is an infectious tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash that is similar to measles. In a small proportion of cases the disease develops into the life-threatening dengue hemorrhagic fever, resulting in bleeding, low levels of blood platelets and blood plasma leakage, or into dengue shock syndrome, where dangerously low blood pressure occurs.Dengue is transmitted by several species of mosquito. (From Wikipedia)
Ticos take Dengue fever very seriously. During summer mosquito time, official-looking men in uniforms walk around and confiscate anything that has standing water in it...bowls, old tires, etc. Other official-looking men walk around with loud hand-held machines and spray a white smoke in every one's yard. The first three months I lived in Costa Rica, my husband worked 1 hour away so he would sleep at his parent's house during the week. There were a lot of things I learned on my own, or with the help from my neighbor. The first time I heard the loud machines I went outside and noticed everyone was standing in their yards looking in the direction of the noise...so I did too. A little while later I noticed this white cloud coming with the noise. A short while after that, one of the men entered my yard and sprayed... then he entered my house. He sprayed the poison smoke all over my house and then walked back out the front door and kept going down the street. Little did I know that if you left your door open that meant you wanted them to spray INSIDE the house... My neighbor comes running over yelling for me to "Abras las ventanas! Abras las ventanas! (Open the windows!)" This was right before I started to vomit from the smell. My neighbor then explained to me that I was supposed to have covered all my dishes and food and had all the windows and doors open. Lesson: doors + open = dengue spray. Dengue spray + food = throw food away.
