South-east Asia Grapples With Dengue"

By Marwaan Macan-Markar / from IPS News

BANGKOK, Jul 12 - End June saw health officials in Singapore confronted with a worrying trend in the affluent, squeaky-clean city-state. During two separate weeks that month, dengue fever cases had reached epidemic levels.

The second week had seen 401 cases reported, while the last week saw 381 cases of the deadly virus, spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Singaporean authorities consider any number above 378 infections a week as an epidemic.

But the rest of South-east Asia is far from immune. Health officials from across the region have been raising an alarm about the trail this mosquito is leaving in many urban areas. The surge in the number of dengue cases has already prompted health officials to say that 2007 may rank as one of the worst years recorded for a disease that is endemic from Burma to Brunei.

‘’There is a risk we are heading towards an epidemic situation in the region,’’ says Dr. John Ehrenberg, advisor for malaria and other vector-borne diseases at the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Western Pacific regional office. ‘’We are seeing a serious increase in the number of cases relative to previous years in Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia.’’

Countries have to be prepared for this and ensure that patients are guaranteed proper care, he explained during a telephone interview from the WHO’s regional headquarters in Manila. ‘’In some least developed countries patients are dying because it is difficult to guarantee patients health care.’’

...The WHO attributes the current increase in the number of dengue cases to climate change. The deaths due to dengue fever are among the 77,000 deaths recorded annually in the Asia-Pacific region linked to global warning, the Geneva-based health agency said at a recent conference in Malaysia.

‘’We have now reached a critical stage in which global warming has already seriously impacted lives and health, and this problem will pose an even greater threat to mankind in the coming decades if we fail to act now,’’ said Shigeru Omi, WHO regional director for Western Pacific...