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Dengue Fever – Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, 9,317 dengue cases and 38 deaths were reported in the first three months of 2012, against 3,103 in the equivalent period of 2011. The total number of Dengue cases last year was 28473.(Disease Trends for Dengue; Epidemiology Unit, Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka)
This marks a a three-fold increase in the number of recorded dengue fever cases in the first quarter of this year.“This rise is mainly due to weather patterns…due to intermittent rain,” SudathPeries, deputy chief epidemiologist at the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health, told IRIN.
Removing breeding sites or stagnant water is the most important step in mitigating risks. Since the large-scale national dengue prevention campaign last August, dengue prevention has become a household chore. Fines of US$50-$150 were instituted, and health officials carried out random inspections of homes, offices and public areas, while the armed forces and police were deployed to clean public areas.
Source IRIN News,
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95266/SRI-LANKA-Dengue-numbers-triple-in-first-quarter-of-2012
Disease Trends, Epidemiology Unit, Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka Government,
http://epid.gov.lk/web/index.php?option=com_casesanddeaths&Itemid=448&lang=en
