July 03, 2009 20:39 PM

Dengue Fever Cases Up, Chikungunya Down

KUALA LUMPUR, July 3 (Bernama)-- The level of involvement of communities in 'gotong-royong' (self-help) activities for combating and controlling dengue fever is still low as only 28 activities were held throughout the country compared to the 69 called for the first 25 weeks of the year.

Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Marican said in the period of June 21-27 vector control activity could also not be implemented wholly as only 320,845 houses were fogged compared to the 682,648 houses identified.

Besides that 731 compound notices amounting to RM36,870 and 256 clean-up notices were issued in the week to house dwellers found to be breeding the Aedes mosquito.

In the same period, there were 749 dengue fever cases with one death each in Kuala Lumpur and Kelantan compared to 738 cases the week before, he said in a statement here Friday.

"The five states that showed sharp rise in dengue cases were Perlis (57 per cent), Melaka (36 per cent), Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (34 per cent), Penang (30 per cent) and Kedah (15 per cent)," he said.

According to him, the total number of dengue cases were 24,534 cases with 62 deaths compared to 20,721 cases with 45 deaths in the same period last year.

Dr Mohd Ismail said the Chikungunya epidemic however registered a drop in that period with 61 cases compared to 88 cases the previous week.

However, he said five states showed a rise in cases compared to the previous week and they were Penang (five cases), Johor (two) and one each in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Negeri Sembilan.

The total number of Chikungunya cases till now was 2,836 cases compared to 4,271 the year before.

He said the Ministry of Health found that till June 27 there were 33 "hot areas" and only 11 localities were free of "hot areas" compared to 39 localities the previous week with 27 of them in Selangor, five in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya and one in Johor.



-- BERNAMA

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