Dengue fever
Cambodia
has seen a rise in the number of reported cases of dengue fever in the
first three months of this year compared to the first three months of
last year.
The Cambodian Ministry of Health recently said that there are now
1,000 more cases reported than at this time last year, according to PhnomPenhPost.com.
Chor Meng Chuor, the director of the National Centre for
Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control, recently said that 1,393
people are known to have been infected and eight have died in 2012. He
made the comments while attending a dengue fever awareness parade
involving 600 students in Phnom Penh.
“That’s why we’re distributing 270 tons of [insecticide] across the country,” Chuor said, PhnomPenhPost.com reports.
The World Health Organization has been helping prepare the Ministry
of Health for an upcoming outbreak because the disease tends to spike
once every four or five years. The last significant outbreak occurred in
2007. During that time, public health officials recorded 400 deaths and
nearly 40,000 infections.
“We don’t want to see another year like 2007, so this campaign is
very important to alert and awaken parents to this,” Chuor said,
according to PhnomPenhPost.com.
Steve Bjorge, the malaria and mosquito-borne disease team leader for
the WHO in Phnom Penh, said that the upcoming campaign would focus on
distributing insecticide to 10 Cambodian provinces.
“Nothing unusual may happen, but it would be prudent to take precautions,” Bjorge said, PhnomPenhPost.com reports.
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