El Salvador registered 408 new dengue cases last week, a slight drop from the 431 cases for the previous week, El Salvador's Health Ministry confirmed Tuesday.

According to a report issued by the ministry, most of the dengue patients were from San Salvador and the Western region.

Salvadorian Health Minister Maria Isabel Rodriguez said people were not following the sanitary recommendations to eliminate the mosquitoes, carriers of the disease.

North of the capital San Salvador, mosquitoes breed in 32 percent of houses, while 50 percent and 20 percent of houses in the West and center of the city respectively had mosquito larvae, the report said.

Carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito which breeds in stagnant water, dengue causes severe pain in bones, muscles and joints, as well as headaches, fever and rash. There is no known cure.

The World Health Organization said there were about 50 million cases of dengue infections worldwide every year. About 3 percent of dengue cases could cause dramatic hemorrhaging, which kills 20 percent of cases if left untreated.

For this year, El Salvador has registered 3,574 cases of classic dengue and 59 cases of the deadliest hemorrhagic kind.