Med India -Health Officials Meet to Finalise Asia-Pacific Dengue Strategy

[Snowy Owl]

MedIndia.com
Health Officials Meet to Finalise Asia-Pacific Dengue Strategy
http://www.medindia.net/news/Health...lise-Asia-Pacific-Dengue-Strategy-36292-1.htm

Asia-Pacific health officials began a meeting in Singapore on Monday to finalise a strategy against dengue fever.​

Representatives from more than 20 countries are attending the five-day meeting, which is co-hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Singapore's National Environment Agency, officials said.

They aim "to basically refine and come up with a final draft plan of the dengue Asia-Pacific strategic plan," said John Ehrenberg, regional adviser for the WHO's Western Pacific region.

The plan will act as a "roadmap" to help countries ensure they have the key components of an integrated initiative to fight dengue, Ehrenberg said.

The strategy includes ways to strengthen surveillance systems, improve clinical management, and upgrade systems in response to outbreaks​

,
said Chusak Prasittisuk, coordinator of communicable diseases control in WHO's Southeast Asia region.

"We are optimistic that the strategic plan... will materialise and will be used by the member states in the Asia-Pacific region," Chusak told AFP.

After the Singapore meeting, regional health ministers will endorse the plan, Singapore's environment agency said.

Asia bears the brunt of a worsening global rise in dengue fever cases, Singapore's environment minister, Yaacob Ibrahim, said in a speech to the gathering.

The worldwide incidence of dengue had increased 30-fold during the past half-century,
Yaacob said.

"Today, dengue is endemic in more than 100 countries, and some two to three billion people are at risk of contracting it. The situation is likely to worsen due to rapid urbanisation and enhanced mobility and transportation," he said.

Dengue is traditionally associated with poorer tropical countries but even highly-urbanised Singapore is vulnerable. An outbreak in 2005 left 19 people dead in the city-state.

The disease leads to a sudden onset of fever with severe headaches, muscle and joint pains, and rashes.

Source-AFP
SRM

 

[Snowy Owl]

Re: Med India -Health Officials Meet to Finalise Asia-Pacific Dengue Strategy

Singapore (dpa)

Experts from 22 Asia-Pacific countries are meeting in Singapore to draw up an eight-year battle plan against dengue fever, participants said Tuesday.

Details in the Asia-Pacific Dengue Strategic Plan are being finalised during the week-long meeting, with results to be presented in September to regional health ministers.

It is crucial that the plan be compelling enough to attract both the money and political will to fight the disease, said Dr John Ehrenberg, the Western Pacific regional adviser of the World Health Organisation (WHO).


Dengue fever respects no borders. "It is an urban disease, a product of our global village, where people move around a lot," said Dr Michael Nathan, chief of vector ecology at WHO's department of control of neglected tropical diseases.

The Asia-Pacific region accounts for more than 70 per cent of dengue cases,

''Nota from Snowy Owl
The above regional statements (70%) is not up-to-date. Just consider the rise of it in Soutn Amrica and many other countries.''​

WHO said. Some 50 million to 100 million cases have been reported worldwide annually, 30 times higher than 50 years ago.

Nota from Snowy Owl, this last statement, paragraph above is not up-to-date and might even be far in the emrging actual emergence.

There have been 1,734 dengue cases in Singapore during the first four months of this year, 36 per cent more than the same period of 2007.

The plan is expected to cover strategies on surveillance, case management, changing behaviour and combating the dengue-spreading Aedes mosquito.

Of course if some of the FT Team can pull up the plan it is going to be usefull for many, many and many countries.

Thank you

Snowy