The Major Malaysian Issue du jour is a major outbreak of dengue that’s approaching epidemic proportions. The authorities are justified in setting off alarm bells since there have been 752 cases of dengue fever nationwide in the last week alone.
My state has the dubious honour of having recorded the highest number of cases as well as the highest number of fatalities in the country. Strangely enough, my district is not noted as having any cases. This is strange because the local health authorities were regularly fogging my area as recently as a month ago and they only do that when a case has been announced.
This used to exasperate me to no end since it was not clear to me what the fogging was meant to achieve. If cases continued to occur even with the fogging, what use was it? Today’s reports confirm what I’ve been suspecting: the fogging is ineffectual because the mosquitoes have become resistant to it. The authorities have decided to change tactics and will now be using a biological control larvicidal that targets mosquito larvae only. I guess time will tell whether it works.
Still, we’ve got to view this in the proper perspective. Dengue fever has claimed 70 lives this year. In that same amount of time, almost 3,000 Malaysian lives have been lost in road accidents.
