Back to square one on dengue

Mozzy buster: A volunteer conducting a fogging exercise in Nibong Tebal, Penang.

Although tens of millions of ringgit have been spent, we seem to be no further ahead in the fight against the disease.

A FRIEND of mine recently experienced a trying ordeal when his son was diagnosed with dengue fever.

Interestingly, the attending doctor told him that there was no vaccine or cure for dengue because it is not a US or Euro-centric disease.

The private hospital doctor’s rationale was that dengue is essentially a South-East Asian disease, with some level of spillover in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

His argument was that if dengue were prevalent in the United States or Europe, much more research funding would have been used to find a reliable vaccine.

The doctor might be stretching his hypo­thesis a tad too far, but what cannot be dispu­ted is that dengue cases in Malaysia have reach­­ed an all-time high of nearly 100,000 last year.

I’m sure that anyone reading this column would either know someone who has suffered from dengue or have suffered from it themselves.

What’s alarming about this fact is that there is a general sense of apathy towards dengue.

My friend told me that despite him calling the Petaling Jaya City Council numerous times, it took them four days to finally fog his street.

“It seems that the authorities don’t move fast enough whenever a case is reported, or the speed at which they act is almost at a snail’s pace. It’s generally a sense of, ‘Oh, its just one more case’,” he told me.

As the number of dengue-related cases increases by the day, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam’s recent statement sent shivers down my spine.

“We are back to square one with dengue research,” he said.

Tens of millions of ringgit spent by the Health Ministry on dengue research down the drain. And to think that barely a year ago we were trumpeting the release of genetically altered male Aedes mosquitoes as the next step to combating dengue.

We are now being told that this initiative is too costly and impractical. Ditto, the plan for a dengue vaccine by a pharmaceutical company which was slated to be marketed next month.

This was shot down by the ministry since it was not satisfied with the research data.

The minister’s statement that our Aedes mosquito research has failed is tantamount to admitting that Malaysia appears powerless to stop the dengue scourge.

According to the World Health Organisation, dengue is the fastest spreading mosquito-­borne viral disease in the world, with a 30-fold increase in incidence during the last 50 years.

The Star’s Fit For Life columnist Dr Milton Lum attributes the rise in dengue cases in South-East Asia to rapid urbanisation.

Millions of people moving into cities with insufficient housing and basic infrastructure provide ideal conditions for the breeding of mosquitoes and dengue transmission.

“Public and private Malaysian hospital beds were overwhelmed in the first quarter of 2015 with dengue sufferers, so much so that patients with other conditions encountered difficulties in accessing hospital beds,” said Dr Lum, adding that this has put a strain on the local and national healthcare systems. Statistics from 2009 indicate that dengue cost Malaysia about RM480mil.

At that time, there were about 10,000 cases annually. Imagine the cost now with dengue cases having increased tenfold!

And they continue to rise.

The Health Ministry reported 38,517 cases and 120 deaths as of April 25 this year, compared to 28,814 cases and 66 deaths for the same period last year, an increase of 9,703 cases (33.7%) and 54 deaths (81.8%).

“Dengue is therefore economically ­devastating for individuals and governments.

“The costs of treatment and loss of productivity adds to the incredible economic impact of dengue,” Dr Lum concluded.

While agreeing that Aedes mosquito research is important, he believes that public apathy, including negative habits like littering, illegal dumping of garbage, poor environmental cleanliness and lack of adherence to guidelines in construction sites are issues that need to be addressed urgently.

There is some hope though. After more than 20 years of research and clinical studies, a dengue vaccine is finally ready.

Nearly 29,000 individuals from the 10 highest dengue-endemic countries, including Malaysia, have received the vaccine.

The Asian results showed that the vaccine was able to reduce the severity of the disease by 80% and the symptoms by 56.5%.

The pharmaceutical company concerned is in the midst of filing the vaccine for registration in all the endemic countries although inexplicably, our Health Ministry has stopped the registration as it is not satisfied with the research data.

The 10-member countries of Asean have now declared June 15 as Asean Dengue Day. With 1.3 billion people living in South-East Asia at risk of getting the disease, the region will demonstrate its commitment to ­combating dengue by raising awareness, ­promoting cooperation and reinforcing ­prevention ­strategies. The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.