Asian nations need to step up the fight against dengue fever, the World Health Organization said, suggesting that some of the resources used to combat bird flu be put towards more deadly viral infections.
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"If we can use some of the funds that are floating around for avian influenza to improve dengue surveillance ... then I think we will make a difference," said Kevin Palmer, the WHO's adviser on malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
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Between 50 million and 100 million cases of dengue fever occur each year in over 100 countries, killing tens of thousands of people, the WHO said.
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But Palmer said bird flu, which has killed just over 100 people, mostly in Asia, has drawn attention away from other diseases.
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"This is where the action is," he said of bird flu on the eve of a two-day regional conference in the northern city of Chiang Mai on fighting dengue.
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"But some of the same laboratories and the same laboratory skills that go into surveillance for avian influenza can be applied to dengue and some of the other viral diseases," Palmer said.
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Several countries had successfully contained dengue in recent decades but their efforts have since failed to keep the mosquito-borne illness in check, said Duane Gubler, director of the Asia Pacific Institute for Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
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"We haven't had the political commitment, we haven't had the economic support from the international funding agencies to maintain the programs over a long period of time," he said.
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Palmer said despite numerous signed agreements between the region's health ministries and the WHO, a culture of secrecy hampered the reporting of dengue outbreaks.
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"The surveillance system for dengue is in large part built on rumours," Palmer said."
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"Most of the time, we don't know about dengue outbreaks until they show up in the newspaper, just because of this problem of sharing information," he added. — AFP
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