LIMA, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Bolivia's National Tropical Diseases Center (Cenetrop) has confirmed 910 cases of dengue since January after examining 2,790 samples taken from patients with similar symptoms, according to news reaching here on Thursday.

    With 848 cases, the eastern province of Santa Cruz was the worst-hit by the disease. There were also 45 cases in the northern province of Beni, eight in the southwestern province of Chuquisaca, and six in the central province of Cochabamba, the Center's director Jorge Vargas was quoted as saying.

    Dengue is a disease carried by the Aedes Aegypt mosquito. Its symptoms include headaches, high fever, pain in the bones and sometimes a rash-like allergic reaction.

    If water does not recede in flooded areas, new dengue cases will keep appearing in the country, Vargas added. Heavy rains triggered by the El Nino weather phenomenon had created many possible breeding grounds for the mosquito.

    Most dengue cases are not fatal, but the hemorrhagic variant, which causes severe internal bleeding as blood vessels collapse, kills between one and 20 percent of its victims.

    In 2006 there were 1,988 cases of classic dengue in Bolivia, or 21 per 100,000, with the vast majority reported in Santa Cruz.