By Adrian Lim
KUCHING, June 8: The Ministry of Health (MoH) predicts that Malaysia will experience a second wave of dengue outbreak from June to September this year.
This follows increased number of dengue cases recorded in the past six weeks.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah observed that dengue cases have been on the rise with a weekly infection rate of eight per cent.
“Based on the five-year trend in the past, MoH expects the second wave of dengue outbreak to occur from early June to September.
“Earlier this year, there were 84 death related to dengue as compared to 83 death recorded last year.
“Most of the deceased went late to seek medical treatment or or three days after the symptom first appeared,” he said during a press conference at MoH’s headquarters at Putrajaya today.
Nonetheless, Dr Noor Hisham said there was a decrease of cases in first half of the year when compared to last year of the same period.
There were 48,584 dengue cases as compared to 54,524 cases recorded in the same period last year. That, he noted, was a reduction of 11 per cent as compared to last year.
As the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) will be implemented with more economic sectors to be opened up soon, Dr Noor Hisham believed that there will be an increased risk of dengue.
He thus urged business operators to clean up their premises, both the indoor and outdoor areas and spraying the places that have been left unoccupied since the Movement Control Order (MCO) as these places could become the breeding ground for mosquitoes.
He also advised the public to maintain a high level of cleanlines and stressed that the fight against dengue is the responsibility of all the people in the community similar to the battle against Covid-19. —DayakDaily
