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Bloomberg

The Philippines’ Department of Health declared a dengue epidemic as cases nearly doubled, with 622 people dying this year from the mosquito-borne disease.
More than 146,000 dengue cases were recorded from January to July 20, a 98 per cent increase from a year ago, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said in a televised briefing on Tuesday.

An epidemic was declared to allow local governments to use emergency funds to control dengue, he said.
President Rodrigo Duterte is open to lifting a ban on the use of Sanofi’s controversial dengue vaccine Dengvaxia – which has been linked to deaths among children from various complications attributed to it – to address the epidemic, his spokesman earlier said.
Are Philippine children's deaths linked to dengue vaccine?
Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral infection found in tropical countries worldwide. It can cause joint pain, nausea, vomiting and a rash, and breathing problems, haemorrhaging and organ failure in severe cases.
While there is no specific treatment for the illness, medical care to maintain a person’s fluid levels is seen as critical.
The Department of Health said that starting on Tuesday, it was conducting a campaign to focus on finding and destroying mosquito breeding sites, which is a primary means of containing dengue. Other government agencies, local government units, schools, offices and communities will join in the effort, it said.

Other Southeast Asian countries have also reported an upsurge in dengue cases this year, according to the World Health Organisation. Malaysia had registered 62,421 cases through June 29, including 93 deaths, compared to 32,425 cases with 53 deaths for the same period last year. Vietnam over the same period had 81,132 cases with four deaths reported, compared to 26,201 cases including six deaths in 2018.
In South Asia, Bangladesh has been facing its worst-ever dengue fever outbreak, putting a severe strain on the country’s already overwhelmed medical system.
Additional reporting by Associated Press


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Disease

Philippines declares dengue epidemic as cases surge

A boy suffering from dengue fever rests inside a mosquito net in the town of Maasin, the Philippines. Photo: EPA

A municipal worker sprays insecticide to kill mosquitos in Dhaka on August 5, 2019, as Bangladeshi authorities attempted to contain a dengue fever outbreak. - Bangladesh is in the grip of the country's worst-ever dengue fever outbreak, with hospitals overflowing and social media flooded with pleas for blood donors. (Photo by Munir UZ ZAMAN / AFP)

FILE - In this April 30, 2019 file photo, Philippine Health Secretary Dr. Francisco Duque III displays a graph showing the decline of the measles outbreak in the country during a press conference during World Immunization Week 2019 in Manila, Philippines. The Philippines' Department of Health has declared the country's massive outbreak of dengue to be a national epidemic on Tuesday Aug. 6, 2019. An announcement from the agency says Health Secretary Francisco Duque III made the declaration in order to improve responses to the outbreak by allowing local governments to draw on a special Quick Response Fund. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Dengue fever is now like the flu, WHO chief says, calling on countries to consider ‘practical values’ of new vaccine

A female Aedes aegypti mosquito. Photo: AP

(FILES) This file photo taken on April 4, 2016 shows a nurse showing vials of the anti-dengue vaccine Dengvaxia, developed by French medical giant Sanofi, during a vaccination program at an elementary school in suburban Manila. The Philippines said on December 1, 2017 it had suspended use of the landmark vaccine for the potentially deadly dengue virus after its manufacturer warned it could worsen the disease in some cases. The Philippines has vaccinated more than 700,000 children with the drug since 2016 when it became the first country to start using it on a mass scale. / AFP PHOTO / NOEL CELIS

Dr Takeshi Kasai, has been named the new regional director of the World Health Organisation’s Western Pacific region. Photo: WHO

Dengue fever threat looms in Philippines amid vaccine fears and deadly measles outbreak

HRJRC2 Baby with Measles Rash, 2014

A child reacts during a Philippine Read Cross Measles Outbreak Vaccination Response in Baseco compound, a slum area in Manila on February 16, 2019. - A growing measles outbreak in the Philippines killed at least 25 people last month, officials said, putting some of the blame on mistrust stoked by a scare over an anti-dengue fever vaccine. (Photo by Noel CELIS / AFP)

16 February 2019, Philippines, Manila: Red Cross staff are working on a measles vaccination campaign in a poor area of Manila. The Philippine health authorities have launched a massive vaccination campaign aimed at vaccinating some 2,000 children against measles every day. The country suffers from a serious outbreak of this disease. Photo: Alejandro Ernesto/dpa

AGHK6T Egyptian mosquito Aedes aegypti feeding on human hand

This photo taken on March 5, 2018 shows patients arriving at the East Avenue Medical Center in Manila. - While Dengvaxia's maker Sanofi has said unequivocally that its world-first anti-dengue fever vaccination is safe, Philippine authorities disagree publicly over whether it could have contributed to children's deaths. The resulting confusion has prompted a dangerous plunge in vaccination rates in the Philippines for other diseases. (Photo by Noel CELIS / AFP) / TO GO WITH Philippines-health-dengue-vaccine, FOCUS by Cecil MORELLA

(FILES) This file photo taken on December 5, 2017 shows a medical worker displaying used vials of Sanofi's dengue vaccine Dengvaxia in Manila. - The Philippine government said on March 1, 2019 it would file criminal charges against six officials of the French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Pasteur over the deaths of children injected with its Dengvaxia anti-dengue vaccine. (Photo by Ted ALJIBE / AFP)

A child cries after being vaccinated against measles by the Philippine Red Cross in Baseco, a slum area in Manila, the Philippines. An outbreak of dengue fever now threatens the country amid a scandal over an anti-dengue vaccine. Photo: AFP

UN probe into Duterte’s Philippines drugs war welcomed by activists – but Manila calls move an ‘insult’

A relative of a victim in Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs at a church service in Manila. Photo: AP

An armed agent of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) stands guard next to seized illegal drugs including bricks of cocaine prior to destroying them at a waste facility in Trece Martires, Cavite province on July 4, 2019. - Around 1.41 tonnes of assorted illegal drugs worth six billion pesos (315 million USD) were destroyed by authorities as part of an intensified narcotics crackdown in the country. (Photo by Ted ALJIBE / AFP)

FILE - In this March 17, 2019, file photo, relatives of victims in President Rodrigo Duterte's so-called war on drugs hold a memorial for their loved ones at a church in Manila, Philippines. On Thursday, July 4, 2019, the Commission on Human Rights has condemned the killing of a three-year-old girl in a crossfire in a Philippine police raid in which her father, a drug suspect, was gunned down along with another civilian and a police officer. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 9, 2018, file photo, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte addresses congressmen and Government officials during the presentation of Republic Act bills in a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Manila, Philippines. Duterte on Thursday, March 14, publicly named 46 government officials, including three congressmen, he said are involved in illegal drugs, and added that criminal investigations against them are underway.(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)

The mother views the coffin of her 3 year old baby Kateleen Myca Ulpina, killed during a sting operation conducted by the police, is seen during her wake in Rodriguez, Rizal, east of Manila on July 5, 2019. - A Philippine senator who initially led President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly drug war sparked outrage when he dismissed the killing of a toddler in a police anti-narcotics operation with an expletive and as collateral damage. (Photo by Noel CELIS / AFP)

Relatives of drug war victims at a memorial mass in Manila on July 9, 2019. Photo: AFP

Deadliest year yet for dengue fever in Bangladesh as cases explode in the capital of Dhaka

Dengue comes from the same female mosquitoes that spread other infections throughout the tropics. Photo: Xinhua

DHA03:BANGLADESH-SLUMS:DHAKA,15AUG99 - A huge slum area at Agargao in Bangladesh capital Dhaka is seen intact August 15, weeks after the government launched a massive drive to demolish all illegal living quarters in the city. Police have evicted at least 20,000 slum families and say the drive will continue until the last of the slums has been emptied. Meanwhile, the slum dwellers, who number about 2.6 million in Dhaka alone, have continued their protest against the move. A Bangladeshi state-owned bank,under directives from the government, has already launched a multi-million dollar programme to rehabilitate the slum dwellers in the villages. an/Photo by Rafiqur Rahman REUTERS

RNPS IMAGES OF THE YEAR 2012 - A child jumps on the waste products that are used to make poultry feed as she plays in a tannery at Hazaribagh in Dhaka October 9, 2012. Luxury leather goods sold across the world are produced in a slum area of Bangladesh's capital where workers, including children, are exposed to hazardous chemicals and often injured in horrific accidents, according to a study released on Tuesday. None of the tanneries packed cheek by jowl into Dhaka's Hazaribagh neighbourhood treat their waste water, which contains animal flesh, sulphuric acid, chromium and lead, leaving it to spew into open gutters and eventually the city's main river. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj (BANGLADESH - Tags: ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Staff members from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) carry out anti-mosquito prevention measures (fogging) against the Dengue fever in Tai Kwai Wan, Cheung Chau. According to the Centre for Health Protection, nine of the 26 confirmed Dengue Fever cases in the city are thought to be contracted on the Cheung Chau island. 27AUG18 SCMP/ Winson Wong

HIV in the Philippines: why it must act fast to control growing epidemic, as advocacy groups lead the way

Faustine Angeles Jr. At an HIV / AIDS and Teenage Pregnancy Symposium in Pangasinan .

Catholic devotees wearing symbols for aids awareness, mark World AIDS Day with a mass in a church in Manila on December 1, 2013. The Department of Health in the Philippine recorded a total of almost 500 HIV-AIDS cases in October 2013, or 66 percent higher than the 295 cases in October 2012, making it the highest ever recorded in a month in the country. AFP PHOTO / Jay DIRECTO (Photo by JAY DIRECTO / AFP)

[02JANUARY2018 FEATURE]

CREDIT: AFP

G1ECN6 Manila, Philippines. 14th May, 2016. An AIDS victim, Faustine Angeles Jr., 27 yrs. old give his message in a public about what he experiences for being a victim during the 33rd International AIDS Candle Lights Memorial and the first Philippine AIDS Hour that was organized by Department of Health (DOH) and the Local City Government of Quezon City. And according to the report, there were 1,638 Filipinos died of AIDS in Philippines since 1984 to March 2016. Credit:  Gregorio B. Dantes Jr./Pacific Press/Alamy Live News

[02JANUARY2018 FEATURE]

CREDIT: ALAMY

This picture taken on December 7, 2016 shows nurse and clinic coordinator Karlo Barsales (R) extracting blood from an individual undergoing HIV testing at the LoveYourself Anglo Center in Manila. - HIV infections among men having sex with men in the Philippines have surged 10-fold in five years, with authorities largely ignoring the problem, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on December 8. (Photo by NOEL CELIS and Noel CELIS / AFP)

[02JANUARY2018 FEATURE]

CREDIT: AFP

This picture taken on December 7, 2016 shows HIV counselor Maiyk Felicitas (R) talking to an individual after he took a blood test at the LoveYourself Anglo Center in Manila. - HIV infections among men having sex with men in the Philippines have surged 10-fold in five years, with authorities largely ignoring the problem, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on December 8. (Photo by NOEL CELIS and Noel CELIS / AFP)

[02JANUARY2018 FEATURE]

CREDIT: AFP

Children stand next to banners during a march to mark World Aids Day in Olongapo. The number of people dying from Aids is rising in the Philippines, whereas globally it is falling. Photo: AFP

News

Asia

Southeast Asia


More than 146,000 cases of the mosquito-borne disease have been recorded so far this year in the country with 622 deaths
It can cause joint pain, nausea, vomiting and a rash, and breathing problems, haemorrhaging and organ failure in severe cases



More than 146,000 cases of the mosquito-borne disease have been recorded so far this year with 622 deaths, the country’s health department announced.


The Philippines

Wellness