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Singapore's `neglect' behind dengue fever outbreak

Government complacency over the perils of dengue fever is responsible for the current infection spike and the spread of the mosquito-borne disease in several Asian nations, experts said yesterday.

A commercially available cure, they add, may also be more than a decade away.

"Dengue is one of these neglected diseases ... it's basically been ignored for many, many years," Duane Gubler, director of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases in Hawaii, said.

"We don't do anything until there's a crisis, and then we try to react to it and it's always too little, too late," Gubler said on the sidelines of the three-day Asian Dengue conference in Singapore.

Several Southeast Asian countries have recently declared war on dengue. Singapore's infections so far this year reached 10,951 last week, far surpassing its previous high of 9,459 set last year. There have been 11 fatalities, a record.

Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines have also issued health advisories and warnings.

Governments need to be proactively dedicating resources to research for drug and vaccine development, Gubler said, and should constantly educate the public on preventing mosquitoes from breeding in their homes.

Dengue is only spread by the Aedes mosquito.

Gubler, who has been researching dengue fever for 35 years, said the spread of the disease globally was intensified by increased urbanization and advances in international transportation.
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