Bangkok Post: Today's Top Stories

Dengue hits hard

By Apiradee Treeratkuarkul

The Public Health Ministry issued a warning yesterday, saying the country is experiencing the worst outbreak of dengue fever in a decade, with more than 4,000 people infected by the virus in only two months.

A total of 4,393 people fell ill between Dec 30 last year and Feb 23, with six deaths reported. Children and teenagers aged from seven to 14 were a high risk, officials said.

More than half of the dengue infect-ions and fatalities were in central provinces, followed by the South and the North, said permanent secretary for public health Prat Boonyawongwirote.

The surge in dengue fever infections was mainly because of climate change which accelerated the life cycle of the mosquito, enabling them to produce a minimum infective dose of the dengue virus faster than before, he added.

The last outbreak in Thailand was reported in 1998 when 129,954 people were found to be infected with dengue fever, leaving 424 dead.

Dr Prat said epidemiologists and provincial health offices have been put on full alert to monitor the disease. Each province is required to persuade people to work with health officers to regularly destroy mosquito larvae in water sources.

I really worry about the goverment decision on this issue. Its just the guy who happen to be the ministry of health is a kind of ex mafia. And his working style is You know I am your boss so shut up!!!

Unfortunately the one who he has to work with is the doctors , their decision is base on logic not because the boss said. If the minister dont has medical knowledge enough ,then he need to off before he been remove cuz he is not qualified

That working style is not going to help people get back to good health. Especially if it gets passed on down the chain of command, eventually from doctors to patients.

I must agree about the logic being the better way to heal people than force. Also, the one's who are going to know the situation the best are the patients themselves, and the rest comes back to good communication skills and bedside manners. I have been out of communication with the Bangkok Post and The Nation for the past three months, and I am not in the least bit familiar with the health minister, but if he is without both some medical knowledge AND suffers from poor communication skills, then people will die if he cannot be replaceds my a more suitable leader for such an important part of society.

With the dengue fever though, I am also as concerned with the epidemic as with the treatment of sufferers. The closest thing we get in Australia where I am is Ross River Virus which I have right now. It's borne by mosquitos like dengue, although not known to be fatal in itself, unlike the dengue haemorraghic fever, which I believe can and does kill people.

It's where these mosquitos come from that worry me the most. The apparently get around in the afternoons from what I have read, rather than the night time. The article mentioned climate change as a reason for the influx of these little pests. The ultimate source though, be it the RRV infected mosquitoes in Australia, or the dengue carriers in Thailand, is still water. Wherever there is a pond or even a 44 gallon drum left fulll of water, these pests will breed, and go on to infect people and other animals too, with their bites. To prevent these sorts of epidemics from starting, there needs to be effort on the part of communities to reduce the amount of stagnant water where the problem is born.

Agreed on the need for a competent health minister, but the problem must needs be addressed from the prevention side as well as the cure side, and I have no knowledge on what is required to cure dengue. There is no medical cure for RRV, but they say you get over it in one or two years. For dengue? I don't honestly know how it's treated, but hope that somehow it can be stopped by dealing with unclean water in the local neighbourhoods.

This news from bangkokpost?

have you checked other sources?

anyway,

dengue fever 's outbreak occurred several years ago
thaksin's gov blaimed it on the burmese/lao/cambodia workers who didn't get Dengue Vaccine.
we had to take our guys to get the vaccine at the hospital
if the gov gives every foreign workers before entering thailan, the disease would have not come back

http://wikitravel.org/en/Dengue_fever

Dengue fever (pronounced DEN-geh) is a viral tropical disease transmitted by mosquito bites. There is no vaccine or medical cure and treatments only manage the symptoms of the disease, some of which can be fatal. The only possible preventive measures are to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes and to avoid mosquito bites.

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=32341

Dengue fever vaccine looks very promising
Disease/Infection News
Published: Wednesday, 7-Nov-2007

Trials of a new dengue fever vaccine appear to be very promising.

The vaccine Tetravalent is manufactured by drug company Sanofi who say it will be ready to be submitted for approval by the year 2012.


Please provide the sources where Thaksin blamed the foreign workers for not immunising with the dengue vaccine. Also I believe that Burma, Laos, and Cambodia are also located in tropical latitudes. WOuld it not make more sense to vaccinate whether you are going international or not. Perhaps the problem is that there doesn't seem to be a vaccine for dengue as yet, according to the sources above. That might make it a little hard to manage.

ah...ha

there are actually people who READ and care about other ppl comments in this forum.

i'm surprised.

Thailand is considered an endemic area for dengue. It has been here since there was Thailand and the outbreaks come and go every period of 2 to 3 years. There have been many attempts to create vaccine against the virus but none succeeded. For the past 3 decades we were unable to induce partial immunization to anybody given the trial sample of the vaccine. So I really doubt it will become available in the market by 2012. Right now the easiest way to stay free from dengue is to rid of mosquito in your surrounding area. That's probably all there is to it. What the government should be doing right now is to try to find a way to decrease the population of mosquito. And there are many methods to accomplish the task. In England, for example, they fill up a plane with chemical stuff that could kill off the mosquito. Whenever the size of population increases as reported by offically appointed people, they send a plane to spray on the infested area. In Thailand, the healthcare department would only go so much as to keep a record of people diagnosed with dengue. Whenever the number of infected people increases, they send a note to the hospitals saying we need to do something or else something bad is gonna happen. It's ridiculous. It's like working with mafia really.

React !!! After things already happen
This kind of things sound familiar in other industry like IT as well ,when I try to teach the good security approach when using program in training class no one care!!! In the end when some things happen they just react and its URGEN !!!

As I mention in other thread before its because of the Sabai Sabai attitude. As long as no one died yet we not need to do any things

http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=152298

There is a lot of good info at www.denguevirus.net