Medindia LOGIN REGISTER
Medindia

Dengue Cases Up in the Philippines: Official

by Medindia Content Team on Dec 8 2007 1:40 PM

The Philippines has recorded nearly 40,000 cases of dengue fever in the first 11 months of the year, the health department said Thursday.

The number of cases for the 11 months had risen 11.7 percent over the same period last year to 37,538, said the department's dengue programme coordinator Lyndon Lee Suy.

"Despite the increase, we have not touched the epidemic threshold," Suy said.

The department has said about 290 people had died from dengue fever in the first 10 months of the year, though Suy did not have statistics for November.

Health officials earlier this year warned of a possible epidemic of dengue fever in Asia. The World Health Organisation said in July that 2007 could be on a par with 1998, when nearly 1,500 people died in the region from the disease.

There is no known cure or vaccine to fight dengue fever, which is transmitted by a bite of the white-spotted mosquito, Aedes aegypti.

Source-AFP
LIN/P


Advertisement