MANILA – A noted Singapore-based health expert warned that dengue, the mosquito-borne disease, has become a global threat to public health due to four major causes, including rapid urbanization.
In a health symposium on dengue in Manila, Dr. Duane Gubler noted that the ailment is no longer confined to tropical countries and is spreading rapidly across the globe.
Aside from the rapid rise of cities, or urbanization, Gubler pointed to a growing population, climate change and increasing international travel as among the major cases for the spread of dengue throughout the world.
Gubler is the director of the Programme on Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Duke University-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School in Singapore.
He noted that in the 1960s, less than 10 countries were reporting dengue cases to the World Health Organization (WHO) but the number soared to at least 65 countries in 2007.
Dengue used to be considered a tropical rainy season disease which is spread by the bites of the infected mosquito species “stegomyia aegypti†and “stegomyia albopticus,†previously known as the “Aedes Aegypti†mosquitoes.
“The world has become urbanized,†Gubler pointed out. “People are moving to cities to find jobs so dengue is also moving to cities.â€
Climate change is also being eyed as a “driver†for the expanding geographical distribution of the ailment, according to Gubler.
He explained that before, temperature limited the range of the mosquito that carried the disease and that frost killed both adult mosquitoes and their larvae.
However, rising temperatures, arising from climate change, have altered the situation that today, the dengue-carrying mosquitoes have reached as far north as Chicago in the US,, Gubler revealed.
In the same symposium, Health Secretary Francisco Duque reported the Philippines has already experienced its second worst year of dengue outbreak since his department reported the first one in 1998.
Duque said that in 2007, the country had more than 45,300 dengue cases and 416 deaths. It was also the third straight year that the country had been trying to push back an alarming rise in reported dengue cases, he added.
The health secretary described the pattern as unusual because they were reporting dengue cases even at the start of the year, which was outside the peak season of the ailment.
At the same time, Dr. Lyndon Lee Suy, the head of the health department’s national dengue programme, pointed out the development of a dengue vaccine worldwide continues to drag on.
Suy explained this is because there are four strains of the dreaded ailment that may surface at any given time, which defies treatment by a given vaccine – if it is available in the market.
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