Dengue cases up by 235% in the last six months

Earlier this year, officials sprayed insecticide in 105 comunes across the capital as part of the aedes aegypti eradication campaign, in a bid to eliminate dengue fever. - Phnom Penh Post/ANN

PETALING JAYA: A 235.6% increase was recorded in the number of dengue cases between Dec 31 and June 10, from 2022 to 2024.

According to statistics from the Health Ministry, 67,775 dengue cases were recorded during this period in 2024.

Meanwhile, 51,331 cases were recorded during the same period in 2023, and 20,194 cases in 2022.

A total of 48 dengue-related deaths have been recorded so far in 2024, whereas 37 deaths were recorded up to June 10, 2023.

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In 2022, some 13 deaths were recorded up to June 10.

Based on statistics from the iDengue website, Selangor recorded the highest number of dengue cases between Dec 31, 2023, and June 10 this year with 35,226 cases.

Johor had the second highest number of cases with 7,358, followed by the Federal Territories (6,409), Perak (4,136), Negri Sembilan (3,520), Penang (2,440), Kedah (2,392) and Sabah (2,205).

Sarawak meanwhile recorded 1,102 cases, followed by Melaka (1,016), Kelantan (974), Pahang (769), Terengganu (120), Perlis (93) and Labuan (15).

On June 10, as many as 384 dengue cases were recorded.

Selangor recorded the highest number of cases (195), followed by the Federal Territories (34), Johor (32), Kedah (27), Perak (22), Sabah (19), Negri Sembilan (17), Penang (12), Sarawak (eight), Kelantan (six) Melaka and Pahang (five each), and Labuan and Perlis (one each).

Terengganu had no recorded dengue cases on June 10.

However, Malaysia is not alone in facing a rise in dengue cases.According to Dengue Prevention Advocacy Malaysia chairman Prof Datuk Dr Zulkifli Ismail, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recorded a 10-fold increase in dengue cases from 2000 to 2019.

The number went up from half a million cases to 5.2 million.

He said: “At last count, about 104 countries in the world are endemic to dengue, and 70% of that burden is in the Asian region.”

The economic burden of dengue in South-East Asia is almost US$1bil (RM4.72bil), he added.

The consultant paediatrician and paediatric cardiologist said that Malaysia’s target is to reduce the number of dengue cases by 5% every year, as well as maintain a death rate of below 0.2%.

Meanwhile, the WHO’s target is to have no deaths from dengue by 2030.

Prof Zulkifli noted that Malaysia is well on track to achieving the target with a 0.08% case fatality – or death – rate in 2023.

“We’ve done well because we’ve put our case fatality rate below 0.2% all this time.

“But we haven’t done well in control because we have not met the target of getting 5% reduction every year from 2022 to 2023 – and 2024 is even worse,” he said, while speaking at the launch of Malaysia’s first approved dengue vaccine at a hotel here yesterday.