“The death toll from dengue fever in the Dominican Republic, where some 8,704 cases of the disease have been registered, has risen to 59 so far this year, according to a Health Ministry report released Thursday,” Xinhua reports. “In the past week alone, the health sector reported three deaths and 602 cases of infection,” the news agency writes, noting, “At the beginning of October 2012, the Dominican government declared a nationwide dengue fever outbreak that had at that point infected 5,800 people and led to 12 deaths” (Hou, 9/5).