Dengue fever outbreak warning issued as Thailand nears summer season

After recording 153,000 dengue fever cases in 2013, the most in two decades, the Thailand Ministry of Health is sending out a warning of a possible dengue outbreak in the country this year as the hot season arrives, according to a National News Bureau of Thailand report Wednesday.

According to Dr. Narong Sahametapat, Permanent Secretary for Public Health, Thailand is slowly entering the period of summer as the mercury is rising higher and higher, in which the condition is conducive to the reproduction of mosquitoes, dengue virus carriers, the report states. Dr. Narong has therefore ordered all health related agencies across the country to step up preventive measures and raise public awareness of the disease.

Thailand saw it’s worst year of dengue fever in 1987 when some 174,000 people were infected with more than 1,000 deaths. Dengue is a mosquito-borne, potentially fatal disease that affects between 50 and 100 million people in tropical and subtropical regions every year, causing fever and muscle and joint aches. According to the World Health Organization, Dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever are present in urban and suburban areas in the Americas, South-East Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific and dengue fever is present mainly in rural areas in Africa.

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