The hot climate currently roasting Malaysia seems to have brought with it a bit of a silver lining, as health officials are saying the heat wave is causing a drop in the number of dengue cases across the country.
From a rate of over 3,500 cases of dengue popping up a week, Deputy Health Minister Dr Hilmi Yahya told the Malay Mail‘s Vanessa Ee-Lynn Gomes that recent data shows Malaysia having only 2,247 dengue cases a week since the heat wave came into effect.
“In this heat, containers become dry and there is no water for mosquitoes to breed in,” he said.
“El Nino has reduced the number of cases but we must also remember that the larvae can live up to six months without water.”
Still, Dr Hilmi said Malaysians should not rest their laurels in the shade, but rather focus on an age-old Malaysian bad habit: cleanliness.
“Cleanliness and the people’s attitude has always been the biggest challenge for the ministry but people should clean up inside and outside their premises as well as the environment,” he said.
The dengue-carrying Aedes mosquito thrives when it can find pools of stagnant water in which to lay their eggs. In Malaysia, those pools are provided by the amount of garbage left strewn out in the open by residents and commuters.
“If we all clean up together, we will be better off. Our efforts to control dengue is dependant on the people’s support and if we don’t have that, we will not achieve our target,” Dr Himi said.
He added that even new strains of chemical fogging solutions have been formulated and used in operations, as the Aedes mosquito has steadily built up a resistance to current insecticides.
