Category Archives: 3. Updates

DENGUE

Posted on by

Philip­pines

Although the num­ber of dengue cases from 2012 increased, the deaths due to the mosquito-inflicted dis­ease declined in 2013, reported on 28 May 2013.

Cit­ing a Depart­ment of Health data from 1 Jan­u­ary to 4 May, 2013, dengue cases increased by 7.47% to 33,458 in 2013 from 31,133 dengue cases posted in the same period in 2012. There had been 149 recorded deaths due to the mosquito-inflicted dis­ease, lower com­pared to the 211 deaths posted in the same period in 2012. The regions that posted the high­est num­ber of dengue cases were: Cen­tral Visayas, Cal­abar­zon, Zam­boanga Penin­sula, West­ern Visayas, Soc­ck­sar­gen, the report said.

Mean­while, the Health Depart­ment started fumi­ga­tion and mist­ing oper­a­tions in pub­lic schools in a bid to reduce dengue outbreaks.

(GMA News 5/28/2013)

 

Sin­ga­pore

A 21-year-old man has been killed by dengue fever recently in Sin­ga­pore, in the first death case result­ing from the dis­ease in 2013 in the city state, reported 30 May 2013. The young man devel­oped symp­toms such as sud­den onset of fever and fatigue before being hos­pi­tal­ized. He died on 29 May 2013.

Sin­ga­pore is cur­rently in the midst of a dengue fever out­break. By 30 May 2013, a total of 8,001 cases have been reported in 2013, sig­nif­i­cantly higher than the num­bers reported in 2012 or 2011.

Dengue fever is an ill­ness caused by infec­tion with a virus trans­mit­ted by the Aedes mos­quito, with the symp­toms includ­ing fever, fatigue as well as joint and mus­cle pains. There are four serotypes of the virus nor­mally seen in Sin­ga­pore. There is cur­rently no effec­tive drug for dengue.

An out­break in Sin­ga­pore in 2005 led to about 14,000 infec­tions and 25 deaths. Another out­break in 2007, result­ing from the spread of a dif­fer­ent serotype, led to 8,826 infec­tions. Author­i­ties have been car­ry­ing out a cam­paign to kill mos­qui­tos to cut the spread of dengue fever.

(Xin­hua News 5/30/2013)

 

DENGUE

Posted on by

Philip­pines (Iloilo)

Health offi­cials in Iloilo have announced that there has been 743 cases of dengue fever in the province since 1 Jan­u­ary 2013, reported 17 May 2013. The num­ber of dengue cases recorded this year is up by 183% com­pared to the same period in 2012. Of the 743 cases recorded, six have ended in death, with the major­ity being young chil­dren. Most of the cases were recorded in the towns of Jani­uay, Banate, Oton and Cabatuan.

(Global Dis­patch 5/18/2013)

 

Sin­ga­pore

The total num­ber of dengue cases in Sin­ga­pore reached the 7,000 mark as of 3pm on 17 May 2013. This is higher than the total num­ber of cases reported for the whole of 2012 and in 2011. There were 4,632 cases reported in 2012 and 5,330 reported in 2011.

There has been how­ever, a slight dip in the num­ber of cases reported dur­ing the week end­ing 17 May 2013. There were 510 cases reported in the week end­ing 17 May 2013as of 3pm, com­pared to 562 the week end­ing 10 May 2013.

Of the 7,000 cases, 159 are in con­struc­tion sites. That is more than dou­ble the num­ber reported in 2012. There were 71 cases reported in con­struc­tion sites in 2012, about 1.5% of total dengue cases in 2012. This makes up 2.3% of the total dengue cases reported.

Ho Ngok Yong, pres­i­dent of SCAL, said: “We want to make sure that, prefer­ably 0% because all our con­struc­tion sites now, you can see these build­ings, are very near to res­i­den­tial places. Prox­im­ity is very close. Any out­break there­fore will affect res­i­dents.” Derek Ho, director-general of pub­lic health at National Envi­ron­ment Agency, said: “We’ve only found about 5% of breed­ing habi­tats that’s from con­struc­tion sites. In fact the major­ity of breed­ing habi­tats are still within homes, about 70% of the breed­ing sites. But we think it’s very impor­tant that all stake­hold­ers in the com­mu­nity do their part to erad­i­cate poten­tial mos­quito breed­ing habitats.”

There were about 638 mos­quito breed­ing sites found in con­struc­tion sites so far in 2013. A total of 722 sites were found in con­struc­tion sites in 2012. The asso­ci­a­tion has mobilised more than 150 con­struc­tion sites to join the fight against dengue. It has adopted sev­eral prac­tices to pre­vent mos­quito breed­ing at its premises. These include lev­el­ling uneven ground to pre­vent water from col­lect­ing and spray­ing oil on drainage areas.

(Chan­nel NewsA­sia 5/18/2013)

 

Thai­land

As of 5 May 2013, there have been 26,000 dengue fever patients with the num­ber of deaths recorded from the mosquito-borne dis­ease at 33, higher than 2012, accord­ing to Dr. Wichai Sati­mai, an expert of the Depart­ment of Dis­ease Con­trol. He said regard­ing dengue fever that now, on aver­age, infec­tions rose to 2,000 every two weeks with three to four deaths. The most vul­ner­a­ble group was chil­dren aged below 15 years old.

Accord­ing to the infor­ma­tion, about 90% of dengue infec­tions showed no symp­toms. How­ever, he said it is believed that the num­ber of dengue fever patients is likely to increase as the rainy sea­son nears. If any­one has s high fever for two con­sec­u­tive days, they should see a doc­tor as delayed med­ical con­sult­ing and diag­no­sis under­ly­ing the dis­ease con­tributed to most deaths from the fever, he said.

Most of Thailand’s patients and deaths were found in the south­ern region, fol­lowed by the north­east­ern region. The pub­lic health min­istry has worked with the health depart­ment and the Office of Basic Edu­ca­tion Com­mis­sion to erad­i­cate mos­qui­toes at home and in school.

(ProMED 5/12/2013)

 

Viet Nam (Phu Yen)

The inci­dence of dengue fever has been increas­ing in the cen­tral province of Phu Yen, with 536 peo­ple con­tract­ing the dis­ease as of 17 May in 2013. In the first quar­ter alone hos­pi­tals received 344 cases, 7.6 times higher than the same period in 2012. Local health author­i­ties are tak­ing mea­sures to con­tain the disease.

(Viet Nam News 5/17/2013)

MEASLES

Posted on by

USA (New York City)

A measles out­break has hit one Brook­lyn com­mu­nity and may be spread­ing, health offi­cials say. There have been 21 cases of measles reported in Bor­ough Park and one case in Williams­burg in 2013, accord­ing to the city’s Depart­ment of Health and Men­tal Hygiene. Those infected are between 10 months and 32 years old,

The first case was imported from Lon­don, accord­ing to the health depart­ment. Measles is a highly con­ta­gious dis­ease and can be deadly. Symp­toms include rash, fever, cough, runny nose and sore throat. The dis­ease can be pre­vented with a vac­cine. The new out­break may have spread between fam­i­lies who had refused vac­ci­na­tions. This is the fourth time since 2008 that a measles out­break has hit the ultra-Orthodox com­mu­nity in Bor­ough Park, All of those who were infected this year have recov­ered, but offi­cials say there may be more cases because of the large num­ber of peo­ple exposed to the dis­ease in the community.

It is the fourth time the dis­ease has taken hold in Bor­ough Park since 2008. Like Bor­ough Park, Lon­don also has a large ultra-Orthodox Jew­ish com­mu­nity with fam­i­lies that have an anti-vaccination atti­tude, said Rabbi Moshe Tendler, the Rabbi Isaac and Bella Tendler pro­fes­sor of Jew­ish med­ical ethics and pro­fes­sor of biol­ogy at Yeshiva Uni­ver­sity. “It has noth­ing to do with reli­gion,” Tendler said. “Most likely there’s a fail­ure in their under­stand­ing of exactly what mod­ern med­i­cine is, largely due to the fact that so many of the fam­i­lies have not had a sec­u­lar edu­ca­tion. It’s not only reli­gious com­mu­ni­ties that have an aver­sion to vac­ci­na­tions,” Tendler noted. “I found it true here as well as in Eng­land: There is a heavy reliance on what’s called by us here in Amer­ica ‘pseudo sci­ence,’ or per­haps a bet­ter term is holis­tic med­i­cine — a reliance on herbals,” he said.

The over­all immu­niza­tion rate among Ortho­dox Jew­ish groups in New York City is sim­i­lar to that for other com­mu­ni­ties, health offi­cials said. The Depart­ment of Health and Men­tal Hygiene did not imme­di­ately pro­vide sta­tis­tics on immu­niza­tion rates. But Tendler said some pri­vate schools in Ortho­dox neigh­bor­hoods are not as strin­gent about vac­cine require­ments as pub­lic schools. “There is a lax­ity con­cern­ing health reg­u­la­tions,” Tendler said. “It’s not part of the edu­ca­tional process. But measles is not a minor dis­ease; in adults it is even more severe, and measles in preg­nant women is par­tic­u­larly dangerous.”

Measles out­breaks occurred in Bor­ough Park in 2008, when there were 30 cases city­wide; in 2009, there were 18 cases; and in 2011, there was a rise in measles inter­na­tion­ally and the city saw 25 cases, accord­ing to the Depart­ment of Health. In 2012, the city only had five measles cases, health offi­cials said. The health depart­ment warned of addi­tional cases because of the large num­ber of peo­ple exposed to the ill­ness in the com­mu­nity. It was work­ing closely with med­ical providers in the affected com­mu­ni­ties, offi­cials said. Out­breaks of the highly con­ta­gious ill­ness can occur in any neigh­bor­hood with infants too young to be vac­ci­nated or even with just a few res­i­dents who refuse to get vac­ci­nated, accord­ing to health offi­cials. Chil­dren should get the first dose of the measles-mumps-rubella vac­ci­na­tion when they are 12 months old and the sec­ond dose at age 4 to 6. Delay­ing the first dose can increase the num­ber of sus­cep­ti­ble indi­vid­u­als and the risk of measles out­breaks. All of the peo­ple affected in 2013 recov­ered with­out hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, health offi­cials said.

(ProMED 5/19/2013)

 

USA (North Carolina)

23 cases of the measles have been reported in North Car­olina in a recent out­break and has state health offi­cials con­cerned. “It (measles) is a highly con­ta­gious dis­ease that is spread in the air by cough­ing and sneez­ing,” said Susan Roger­son, nurs­ing direc­tor at the Edge­combe County Health Depart­ment. Out­breaks of measles in the United States are rare because of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vac­cine. No cases of the measles have been reported in Edge­combe County. The major­ity of the cases reported were in rural Stokes County, but cases were also reported in Orange County.

The major­ity of the North Car­olina res­i­dents affected by the measles out­break had not been vac­ci­nated. In the case of the Orange County fam­ily, one per­son had been fully vac­ci­nated and another had a par­tial vac­cine, reported on 8 May 2013. The MMR vac­cine is avail­able at the Edge­combe County Health Depart­ment by appoint­ment, although most school-aged chil­dren will have received the vaccination.

“Two doses are required before admis­sion to kinder­garten,” said Roger­son. “Typ­i­cally the first one’s given at 12 months.” The vac­cine is free to those eli­gi­ble for the Vac­cines for Chil­dren pro­gram. For those not eli­gi­ble for the pro­gram, the vac­cine is USD 103 per shot. “Measles is very uncom­mon in North Car­olina, so many peo­ple aren’t aware of the symp­toms,” Dr. Laura Ger­ald, state health direc­tor, said.

(ProMED 5/19/2013)