A study in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene has revealed that mosquito-borne dengue disease costs the island territory of Peru nearly $40 million a year.

Dengue fever, the more common dengue illness, causes high fever, joint pain, and severe headache.  Dengue hemorrhagic fever, the more severe dengue illness, may put a patient into shock and lead to death. The number of annual dengue infections is now estimated between 50-100 million, with 24,000 deaths, primarily among children.

The economic burden of dengue throughout the Americas has resulted in losses of about $2.1 billion per year. In Puerto Rico, households are said to pay an estimated 50 percent of their territory’s dengue-related costs, with the government and insurance companies covering the remaining half.

The $2.1 billion-per-year cost is said to primarily be a result of indirect costs like losses in productivity and government expenditures.

The study was conducted by a team of researchers from Brandeis University and Sanofi Pasteur, a research-based vaccine company based in France.