Dengue outbreaks are at risk of outbreaks across Asia

Public health officials warn, this year dengue outbreaks are likely to break out in Asia and it will not exclude any country, from rich countries, keeping good hygiene like Singapore to poor countries. like Cambodia.

The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that this year's epidemic will be as bad as what happened in 1998, when nearly 1,500 people in Asia died from a mosquito-borne illness.

This year, in Indonesia alone, dengue has claimed more than 1,000 lives. In many other areas, the death and infection rates by the end of June exceeded the total in 2006.

"Most likely, 2007 will be one of the worst years for dengue epidemics," said John Ehrenberg, malaria adviser and many other diseases at WHO's regional office in the Philippines. "We received reports of an increase in the number of cases in the region."

Kill mosquitoes (Photo: VNN)

Dengue also causes many deaths such as malaria, killing 2.7 million people worldwide worldwide each year. There is currently no cure or type of vaccine that is effective for treating dengue fever, a disease spread by the white spot mosquito bite - Aedes aegypti mosquito.

Most deaths from dengue fever are children and the elderly because of their poor resistance to the virus. Victims often die from internal bleeding.

Health officials say the best way to prevent dengue from spreading is to control mosquito growth areas, areas with stagnant water. However, the control is very difficult when the annual rainy season begins to take place.

Experts say the early rainy season in many parts of Asia increases the number of cases.

Across Asia, cases of dengue have increased dramatically. Thailand has recorded 19,000 cases and in the first 6 months of this year, 18 people died.

In Cambodia, the number of deaths from dengue this year has exceeded the number of records recorded in 2006. Cambodia is currently struggling with one of the worst outbreaks in a decade. Since the beginning of the year, there have been 182 deaths in Cambodia out of 15,000 cases. Last year, the number of people who died from the disease was only 152, said the director of the dengue program of the Cambodian Ministry of Health.

Vietnam has reported nearly 2,000 cases of infection with 21 deaths, 7 more than the same period last year.

Than Win, a senior official of the Myanmar Ministry of Health, said the number of dengue cases in the country is rising sharply."Since the beginning of the year, there have been 3,000 cases, 30 people died. This figure is much higher than the same period in 2006."

While poor countries with underdeveloped health systems are prone to disease outbreaks, rich countries like Singapore cannot be excluded. Dengue fever has become an important health problem in Singapore and the government must launch a campaign to raise public awareness and eradicate areas where mosquitoes can live. In 2007, Singapore recorded nearly 3,600 cases of dengue fever, more than doubling over the same period in 2006.

In Malaysia, Director of the Ministry of Health's Disease Control Center Hasan Abdul Rahman said that in the first four months of this year, 44 people died of dengue fever, in 2006, only 21 people died in the same period.

According to WHO, before 1970, only a few countries fell into dengue epidemics. But now the disease has spread to more than 100 countries worldwide.

Hoai Linh