Brazilian laboratories say delays in providing kits to test for mosquito-borne dengue have forced them to store patient blood samples until the kits are delivered.

In Sao Paulo, the state government's Adolfo Lutz Institute says in a statement it has not received any of the 2,500 kits it requested from the Health Ministry five months ago.

Rio Janeiro's Noel Nutels Laboratory says it hasn't received any testing kits since July 2015. Like the Adolfo Lutz lab, it says it's been forced to stole .

The Health Ministry has said that over the next few weeks it will distribute enough kits to test blood samples nationwide.

Painful dengue is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito that also carries the Zika virus, yellow fever and chikunguya.

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