By Daniela Desantis ASUNCION, March 2 (Reuters) - A Supreme Court justice, soccer players and a senator have all come down with dengue in Paraguay, as the worst outbreak in the country's history hit the well-off as well as its usual victims among the poor. On Friday, a nurse who worked with the public health service died after being hospitalized for dengue. Ten people have died and more than 15,000 have been infected in the last two months with the mosquito-born virus, which causes high fever, headache, severe muscle and joint pain and, in its worst form, potentially fatal internal bleeding. Paraguay, which never had a dengue death before this outbreak, and neighboring Brazil and Bolivia have declared health alerts as they all fight major dengue outbreaks that could be linked to unusually hot and rainy weather. "We're really scared. Everyone is sick. This is chaos," said Amalia Benitez, an herb vendor in Asuncion, capital of the landlocked South American nation. Some stores in Asuncion have run out of mosquito repellents, citronella oil bracelets are all the rage and radios are full of a new song with lyrics about the dengue carrier: the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Doctors and health workers protested on Friday in front of a government public health building, saying the government has failed to fight the epidemic properly despite assigning $3.8 million in emergency money. Carrying signs with drawings of giant mosquitoes and photos of health officials, the protesters demanded Health Minister Oscar Martinez resign. Dengue inflections have increased four-fold in the last three decades, according to the World Health Organization. Most dengue is in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, but incidence and severity is increasing rapidly in Latin America. Dengue has expanded in the Americas since the 1970s, as the mosquito that carries it hugely expanded its territory after governments stopped large-scale eradication campaigns, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
