EL NINO EFFECT: High temperatures and extreme weather have helped make this year’s dengue fever outbreaks in Southeast Asia more serious, the CDC said

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 14, 2019
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

222There have been 303 imported cases of dengue fever this year, the highest number in a decade, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.

Seventeen imported cases were confirmed last week, bringing the total since last month to 107 as of Monday, Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said.

People who were confirmed to have dengue in the past month were mostly infected in Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines, and more than 90 percent of the cases confirmed this year came from infections picked up in Southeast Asian countries, she said.

This is peak transmission season for dengue fever in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Laos, Maldives, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore and Indonesia, and the CDC has issued a level 1 travel advisory for these nations, as well as Myanmar and India, she said.    [FULL  STORY]