RIO DE JANEIRO, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's most populated state Sao Paulo has registered 326 cases of yellow fever and 116 deaths since the current outbreak began, the local health authority said Friday.
The number of deaths increased by 14 in only one week, and the total number of cases was up 40 in the same period.
Infections are so far confined to rural areas in Sao Paulo, with 59.1 percent of the total cases registered in the towns of Maripora and Atibaia.
In order to halt the advance of the disease, local authorities launched massive vaccination campaigns.
Since the beginning of the year, 7 million people were vaccinated against yellow fever in Sao Paulo state, a sharp increase from 2017, when 7.4 million people were vaccinated during the entire year.
Sao Paulo is among the top states with yellow fever cases, second only to the Southeastern state of Minas Gerais, which has so far registered 384 cases.
The latest national tally released on Wednesday showed that there are 846 confirmed cases and 280 deaths related to the disease, making the current outbreak the largest in decades. In the 2016-2017 outbreak, Brazil saw 777 cases and 261 deaths.
The mosquito-borne disease is endemic in tropical areas in Africa and Central and South America, according to the World Health Organization.
Symptoms of the disease are similar to that of the flu, which include fever, headache, muscle pain, vomiting, among others.
