The Social Security System (Caja) saw more than 110,000 consultations and treated almost 50,500 people infected with dengue last year, the Caja told the press yesterday.

Eight people died in 2007 from dengue hemorrhagic fever.

In a press statement, Rosa Climent, head of medicine at the Caja, stressed the urgency for strengthening efforts to combat the mosquito-borne virus.

In addition to taking lives, the virus is digging heavily into the Caja's coffers. Social Security spent ¢4.16 billion ($8.3 million) last year on treating patients with dengue. Climent called for great prevention, saying that the Social Security System will continue to work with both public agencies and private firms to keep the fight going.

One example of the private sector's commitment, Climent said, is beverage company Florida Bebidas' “Barridas contra el dengue” (Sweep Up Dengue) program designed to help 20 of the most dengue-prone areas of Costa Rica.

“The program is a clean-up effort in which volunteers collect garbage such as empty bottles and sometimes old washing machines off the street. These can accumulate water and create a breeding ground for mosquitoes,” Caja spokeswoman María Isabel Solís said.

The project launched Sunday in the Cañas canton, in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, according to Carlos Francisco Echeverría of Florida Bebidas, and is set to continue this weekend in Liberia, the province's capital, and Belén, a town northwest of San José.

Meanwhile, international researchers and aid workers are racing to find a way to stop the spread of the virus, which mosquitoes pass to up to 100 million people each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A group of British scientists say they have found a way to pre-empt the mosquitoes' strike, Wired Magazine reported. Scientists at the company Oxitec said they can decimate mosquito populations by breeding genetically modified male “terminator” mosquitoes and setting them loose to mate with wild females. Their offspring, the report said, would contain a lethal gene that would make them die young.

New higher-denomination bills are on the menu for a currency overhaul scheduled to go into effect in 2010.

The printing of ¢20,000 and ¢50,000 bills is only part of a paper money revamp that will also include an art redesign, a change in size and possibly change in material, from cotton paper to plastic, said Ricardo Rodríguez, treasury director for the Central Bank.

Rodríguez said the bank has decided to release the higher denomination bills to achieve a “more equal distribution” of money. Right now, 70% of cash circulating is in ¢10,000 bills.

In addition to including beefier nominations, Rodríguez said the new series of bills will vary in length to make them recognizable to the blind.

The ¢1,000 bill will be 125 mm long, with the length increasing by 7 mm in each denomination up to the ¢50,000 note, which, at 156 mm, will be the length of the current bills. The width will not vary.

Rodríguez said the bank made the decision to issue variable-length bills after extensive studies and workshops with blind focus groups. Mexico and Australia have similar currency systems.

Read today's print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

Organizers expect some 30,000 revelers and reggaetón-rousers tomorrow to swarm to the central Pacific coast's Jacó Beach Music Festival. Puerto Rican reggaetón's crowned king himself, Daddy Yankee is scheduled to bring his best songs, “La Gasolina” and “Lo que pasó pasó” – which for some have become booty-shaking party anthems and, for others, ear-piercing rants packed with questionable sexual innuendos.

There's no denying, however, that reggaetón, in much of Central America, the Caribbean, and in the U.S. and E.U. enclaves inhabited by the young émigrés of those regions', is by now a ubiquitous and insanely popular phenomenon. It's Latino culture and the Spanish language consuming all that is bold about Jamaica's dancehall reggae and the United States' boastful hip hop.

In the fashion of the latter style, breakdancers will be on hand, poised to battle on the dance floor. So will DJs, lined up to spin varied electronic styles as well as live music by Sasha Campbell, Le Pop and Tapón. There will also be a slew of arts and crafts, a massage area, a tea room and a climbing wall. The event is expected to last up to 12 hours, with some DJ sets scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.

Part of the proceeds from ticket sales (¢10,000 in advance, ¢13,000 day of) will go to help start a lifeguard program on Jacó.

Tickets can be bought at the Web site www.mundoticket.com, by phone at 207-2025, or at a variety of Servimás counters around the country.

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