Rate of weekly rise in dengue cases highest since 2005
SINGAPORE – Dengue infection numbers surged last week with 620 people falling sick – up more than 10 per cent on the previous seven days.
The only time Singapore has recorded a higher rate was during the country’s worst epidemic in 2005, a year when 14,000 people fell sick and 25 died.
By 3pm on Monday, the toll of infections since Jan 1 had hit 7,195.
A Health Ministry spokesman said less than 30 per cent of patients required hospitalisation and there has been no deaths. But the mosquito-borne disease has also spread beyond the east, where it was rampant in the early months of the year.
There are now several clusters in parts of the west and north, such as Bukit Batok, Choa Chu Kang and Jurong West. More than 100 people in Yishun have been infected this year.
A spokesman for Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, which is in the area, said there had been “a gradual upward trend for dengue cases”.
Dr Indumathi Venkatachalam, an infectious diseases expert at the National University Hospital, said the spread was no surprise: “We are seeing an increase in the number of people exposed to the virus, and we are approaching the hot season where the virus multiplies faster.”
But the bulk of the cases remain in the east, with about 350 people in Tampines alone already infected.
Infectious diseases experts have been predicting a serious epidemic this year, caused largely by a change in the most active serotype in March from Den-2 to Den-1, which resulted in fewer people having immunity.
There are four types of dengue viruses. People who have been infected get immunity for life from the type that they caught, but are likely to be more sick if infected by a different one. Symptoms include fever, severe headaches, pain behind the eyes and rashes.
The National Environment Agency has uncovered more than 6,600 mosquito breeding sites, after intense efforts. Almost two in three of them, or 4,178, were in homes. The rest were in public areas and construction sites.
Source: The Straits Times
