Brace yourselves, folks. This year’s dengue statistics — in just the first week alone — has trumped that of last year.
The first week of January has seen 3, 337 dengue cases, which is a spike of 1,000 cases than the average per week last year, The Star Online reports.
In the last week of December, more than 2,500 cases were recorded, with four fatalities. The Health Ministry has also warned that the El Nino effect could result in a 50 per cent increase in the number of cases.
“With the hot weather, the life cycle of Aedes mosquitoes, from eggs to adulthood will be shortened to seven days and this will increase the mosquito population during the period,” Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah was quoted as saying in a statement yesterday.
The report states that all states, with the exception of Kedah and Labuan, have shown spikes in the number of dengue cases this year.
