While we are battling the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus we would have to worry about the new dengue strain that could infect more Singaporean than the Coronavirus.
The rise of dengue fever
Before the outbreak of coronavirus reports of the number of dengue is rising steadily.
According to the website, the case of the new dengue strain peaked at 404 cases during mid-January and it is still increasing without any sign stoping.
According to the graph provided by NEA we can see that the number of dengue infections per week ranges between 303 and 404.
In 2019, Singapore experienced the third-highest number of deaths from dengue infection: 20.
And the number of cases this year exceeds last year’s over the same period. Way more than COVID-19.
DenV-3 is a new strain of the dengue virus.
To make the situation worse this new strain of dengue DenV-3 was not detected in the past 3 decades as most of the cases in Singapore were DenV-1 and DenV-2.
With Singapore’s population was not exposed to the new strain of DenV-3 it could mean most of us Singaporean does not have immunity towards it therefore the transmission rate will be higher.
The situation does not end here. NEA further provide new observation where among all the infected patient there is a higher proportion of DenV-3 (47%) as compared to DenV-2 (39%)
At the time of writing, there are 114 active dengue clusters with the largest at:
- Begonia Drive (166 cases)
- Gangsa Road (96 cases)
- Jalan Kembangan (85 cases)
- Ang Mo Kio Ave 10 (67 cases)
- Jurong West St 91 (57 cases)
You can read the entire list here.
