The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday warned that the Western Pacific Region may be heading for a major dengue outbreak unless concerted effort and cooperation are undertaken quickly.
The disease, which arrived earlier than usual in this year, has already caused hundreds of deaths in the region, the WHO's Regional Office for the Western Pacific said in a statement.
Stronger political commitment and greater spending from Member States are needed to support dengue prevention and control program, so as to improve dengue surveillance and the management of patients, the statement said.
For the past decade, ten countries and areas, namely Cambodia, China, French Polynesia, Fiji, Malaysia, Laos, New Caledonia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, accounted for 98.4 percent of all dengue cases and 99.7 percent of all deaths in the Western Pacific Region, it added.
The statement, however, said that current official information from most WHO members is incomplete, making it difficult to get an accurate estimate of the magnitude of the problem in the Western Pacific Region. It urged countries to provide dengue information to the WHO.
Since there is no vaccine to prevent dengue nor are there any effective antiviral drugs to treat the disease, the WHO has called for an integrated approach among its members to dengue fever prevention and control.
Dengue is presently endemic in at least 100 countries throughout the world. Over 50 million dengue infections, including about 400,000 cases of dengue fever, are reported annually, according to the WHO.
Dengue haemorrhagic fever is a leading cause of childhood death in many endemic countries, the WHO said.
Source: Xinhua
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