Cambodia records 46 per cent drop in dengue cases in 2024

Phnom Penh, Jan 12 Cambodia reported 18,987 dengue cases in 2024, a sharp decline of 46 per cent from 35,390 cases in the year before, said a Ministry of Health's report on Sunday.

"The disease killed 46 people last year, down 53.5 per cent from 99 deaths a year earlier," the report said.

Leang Rithea, National Dengue Control Programme manager and deputy director of the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology, and Malaria Control, attributed the success to efforts to distribute larvicides, mosquito repellents and other materials to households to prevent a large-scale outbreak, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Parents should take their sick children to health centres or state hospitals within 48 hours if they suspect that their kids are infected with a dengue virus," he told Xinhua.

Rithea also urged households to fill in puddles around their houses, saying that the puddles are the sources of mosquitoes.

Dengue fever is a viral disease transmitted through the bite of an Aedes mosquito.

The disease causes an acute illness that usually follows symptoms such as headache, high fever, exhaustion, severe muscle and joint pain, swollen glands, vomiting and rash.

In the Southeast Asian country, the peak of the dengue epidemic period is in the rainy season from May to October.

Earlier, Huy Rekol, Director of the National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control, said malaria cases in the Southeast Asian country plummeted by 74 per cent from 1,384 cases in 2023 to only 355 cases in 2024.

Malaria is mainly found in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, Asia, and Africa. The term malaria comes from the Medieval Italian phrase mala aria, which means "bad air".

Malaria is common in tropical areas where it's hot and humid. In 2020, there were 241 million reported cases of malaria throughout the world, with 6,27,000 deaths due to vector-borne disease. The majority of these cases occur in Africa and South Asia.

Source: IANS