Dengue Fever Patients Declines 30% From 2003

[george]

Dengue fever patients declines 30% from 2003

BANGKOK: -- Thailand's ongoing battle with dengue fever is moving the right direction, according to public health officials, but not all the news is good.

Current measures to combat dengue fever in the country have proved successful as this year's cumulative total of patients with the disease since the beginning of 2005 until September declined 30 per cent as compared with 2003, according to a senior official of the Ministry of Public Health. but the disease is becoming increasingly threatening to those who contract it.

Dr. Thawat Suntrajarn, director general of Disease Control Department, said the number of dengue fever victims from January 2 to September 24 this year totaled 34,291--with 58 deaths--compared to 49,246 patients with 61 deaths in 2003, a decline of 30 per cent.

The downside--according to the statistics--is that Thais who contract the disease have a higher chance of succumbing to it. In 2003 one of every 807 Thais contracting dengue fever died, but this year--so far--one in every 591 patients has died, a much-increased death rate.

According to Dr. Thawat, the Central region was found to have the highest number of patients having the disease with 13,192 cases, followed by the South with 8,563 cases, the Northeast with 7,310 and the North with 5,226.

"Compared to Malaysia which has less population and smaller than Thailand, between 70-80 patients have lost their lives now while the number of dead victims in Thailand is still low and this shows that our measures to control the disease work out efficiently, said Dr. Thawat, adding that the survival rate in Thailand is over 99.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, Public Health Minister Suchai Charoenratanakul said health officials would this year focus on destroying breeding grounds of striped mosquitoes--the Aedes aegypti mosquito--at houses, slums, schools and government offices.

Minister Suchai said surveys were conducted in late September this year and officials found that 92 per cent of 10,314 schools did not have striped mosquito larvae in their compounds.

He said similar surveys were conducted on 2,721,099 houses --of which 89 per cent were safe from the striped mosquito.

The ministry has set a goal that the number of dengue fever patients not exceed 50 per 100,000 people.

Dengue fever normally occurs in two-year cycles of intensity, with low incidence at other times.

--TNA 2005-10-16