Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia 14 Mar 09;
SINGAPORE: Dengue killed three times more victims in 2008 than in recent years in the Asia Pacific region. With the dengue season set to begin in Singapore in May, health authorities are keeping close tabs on the number of reported cases.
Experts said 1.8 billion people in the Asia Pacific region are at risk of getting dengue fever. Dengue is the most widespread tropical disease after malaria and about 3,000 people died from it in Southeast Asia last year.
The problem is currently being discussed at a ten-day workshop attended by Asian dengue specialists in Singapore.
Singapore saw a 26 per cent jump in number of dengue cases in the first nine weeks of the year, compared to the same period the year before. But in the past few weeks, the number of cases has been dropping.
136 cases were reported in the second week of February, but in the first week of March, the figure went down to 88.
Right now, there are 13 dengue clusters on the island. One of them – Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10 – has already seen 19 cases reported.
To spread the dengue prevention message, the National Environment Agency (NEA) will be working closely with Community Development Councils (CDCs).
Senior Parliamentary Secretary Amy Khor, Environment & Water Resources Ministry, said: "To make the programmes and campaigns more effective, the CDCs, together with the NEA, are planning to target the programmes with specific groups of people – the young, the elderly, the students living in the hostels and even the foreign workers living in the dormitories."
There are also plans to provide better designed bamboo pole covers to needy residents to prevent rainwater from collecting in the pole holders where mosquitoes can breed.- CNA/so
