Paraguay dengue fever injects 14 major soccer figures

Paraguay's dengue fever outbreak had infected 13 players and one coach in the nation's first division soccer league, including five in Cerro Porteno, often rated as the nation's top team, according to reports reaching here on Wednesday.

Asuncion daily ABC Color said that soccer players are more likely to catch the disease because of their training schedules, which are normally early in the morning or in the early evening: the times when the mosquito is most active.

The five Cerro players are: Jorge Britez, Nelson Cabrera, Alfredo Rojas, Eulalio Villamayor and Angel Mendoza.

Also infected are Julian Benitez (Guarani), former World Cup star Carlos Bonet and Victor Caceres (Libertad), Cesar Caceres Canete and Juan Abente (Sportivo Luqueno), Eduardo Gonzalez (Sportivo Trinidense), Lidio Benitez (3 de Febrero), Lorenzo Silva (Tacuary) and Argentine coach Miguel Angel Zahzu (Sportivo Luqueno).

Some 14,000 people have been suffering from dengue have sought medical help from the government since the start of the year, 10 of whom then died of the infection.

Dengue is caused by four closely related viruses and is spread by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which breeds in still water. Its symptoms include high fever, nausea, rashes, backache and headaches.

Most mainstream dengue cases are not fatal, but the hemorrhagic variant, which causes severe internal bleeding as blood vessels collapse, kills between one and 20 percent of its victims.

Source: Xinhua