2007 Dengue Warning

Because of climate change and global warming, experts warn that 2007 may prove to be another worse year as far as dengue fever incidence is concerned. The typhoon season is coming, and where there's excess rainwater, there is always great potential for vector mosquitoes to breed.

Southeast Asian nations this early are already beginning to feel dengue's deadly presence.

In Thailand, more than 11,000 patients have been affected as of June 7 this year.

In the Mekong River Delta region of Vietnam, more than 10,000 people have also been affected.

In Indonesia, because of recent floods, there have been more than 68,000 dengue cases and more than 700 deaths already. Health officials there already fear that with the current trend, the 2006 record of 106,425 cases might easily be surpassed.

In wealthy Singapore, there was a surge of more than 200 cases last May, owing in part to a new strain of dengue.

In Malaysia, more than 300 cases were reported in Selangor from May 22 to June 2, with nearly a thousand cases reported all over the country as of last week.

In my beloved Philippines, more than 5,000 cases have been reported from January to May this year, with more than 1,000 cases coming from Metro Manila. The only good news is that no one has died yet from all those cases.

Killing mosquitoes is key to solving the dengue problem. If you think about it, the solution seems easy. Eliminate breeding places, and you prevent mosquitoes from multiplying. But the real challenge here is changing people's attitudes. Education is not enough sometimes. Commitment to clean surroundings can be a tough problem for most Filipinos not used to it. There must really be a collective effort from the communities in order to stop or weaken this problem. People should not always depend on government to do everything for them.