Fighting dengue via research

I REFER to the report “Innovative research to fight dengue needed” (The Star, Aug 11). To say that dengue research in this country is “piecemeal” or “not serious” is far from the truth. As early as 1908, the then newly-established Institute for Medical Research (IMR), Kuala Lumpur had already conducted a survey in Port Swettenham (now Port Klang), Penang and Singapore and found that Aedes aegypti was an exotic species introduced via shipping lanes from tropical Africa.

From then on, research on dengue by the IMR has been actively pursed unabated. Voluminous data and abundant knowledge on dengue have been acquired and accumulated over the last 100 years through the institute’s research efforts.