Dhaka, Nov 4 (IANS) Bangladesh reported 1,147 new dengue cases and five new deaths in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said.

According to the data, 2,960 dengue cases were recorded so far in November, taking the tally to 72,822 and the death toll to 288 so far this year.

Dengue fever, typically a monsoon-season illness in Bangladesh, is now spreading beyond its usual June-September period, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Dengue is a viral infection transmitted to humans through the bite of infected mosquitoes and is found in tropical and sub-tropical climates worldwide, mostly in urban and semi-urban areas. The primary vectors that transmit the disease are Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and, to a lesser extent, Aedes albopictus.

There is no specific treatment for dengue; however, the timely detection of cases, identifying any warning signs of severe dengue infection, and appropriate case management are key elements of care to lower case fatality rates to less than 1 per cent.

Dengue was first recorded in the 1960s in Bangladesh (then known as East Pakistan) and was known as “Dacca fever”. Since 2010 cases of dengue appear to coincide with the rainy season from May to September and higher temperatures. Bangladesh’s climate conditions are becoming more favourable for the transmission of dengue and other vector-borne diseases including malaria and chikungunya virus due to excessive rainfall, waterlogging, flooding, rise in temperature and the unusual shifts in the country’s traditional seasons.

Dengue is endemic in Bangladesh with recurrent outbreaks and is one of the major public health concerns in Bangladesh. Dengue virus has the potential to cause epidemics resulting in high morbidity and mortality.

All four serotypes of the dengue virus have been reported in Bangladesh with the predominance of DENV 1 and DENV2 until 2016. Since 2019, when the largest dengue outbreak was reported, DENV3 has been the predominant serotype, while this year DENV2 has become the predominant serotype.

–IANS

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