Stopping the little critter with a big bite

IF we don’t do our part in combating its spread, a dengue outbreak of unprecedented scale could occur within this year or the next.

On Friday, the Health Ministry’s Disease Control Division warned that the recent surge in dengue cases could be the prelude to a potential major outbreak soon.

The figures are frightening: From January to June 4 this year, there has been a 158% rise in dengue cases and a 183% increase in the death toll compared with the same period last year.

While Malaysia typically experiences a surge in dengue cases every four to five years, these numbers are troubling when compared with previous ones: There were 48,712 cases reported from January to June 3 this year, far surpassing the 18,883 cases reported in the same period last year.

This year has also seen 34 deaths from dengue fever complications already, more than double the 12 dengue-related deaths in 2022.

The key to preventing an outbreak is public support – does that sound familiar?

Like Covid-19, dengue fever is a viral disease, and like the pandemic-causing virus, dengue has to be stopped collectively.

While dengue spreads through the mosquito’s bite rather than fluids like Covid-19 does, dengue needs all of us to adopt preventative measures to stop an outbreak.

Just imagine how effective it would be if each of us allocates just 10 minutes each week to search and destroy the breeding grounds of the Aedes mosquito that carries the virus.

Start by checking your own surroundings thoroughly for stagnant water and piled-up stuff that could harbour the insects, indoors as well as outdoors.

After that, we can do simple things such as walking around the neighbourhood, looking out for containers or areas that could be potential breeding grounds (bonus: you get some exercise too). If you can’t deal with the containers, or rubbish, or anything else that could harbour mosquitoes, call your local council.

We must support promising government efforts too, such as the Wolbachia Mosquito Operation (WMO) which releases mosquitoes carrying the Wolbachia bacteria to breed with wild mosquitoes; the bacteria makes it more difficult for viruses like dengue to reproduce, reducing viral loads in the wild.

The WMO was carried out in selected areas of the country in 2019, and dengue cases were reduced by 33% to 100% in 16 out of 19 high-dengue burden localities, with the remaining three not reporting any increase in cases.

These are the types of numbers we can get behind, and it’s important that we do so because, as the World Health Organisation reports, dengue fever is now considered the most critical mosquito-borne viral disease in the world; it’s also the most rapidly spreading, with a 30-fold increase in global incidence over the past 50 years.

We’ve become accustomed over the decades to letting the government bear the brunt of trying to deal with dengue with fogging and vector control using biological means such as the Wolbachia mosquitoes.

But as we learnt during the pandemic, it takes a whole-of-society approach to deal with a threat against all of us. So let’s all get on the frontlines of the battle to stop dengue outbreaks.