SHAH ALAM: More than half the dengue cases in Malaysia occurred in Selangor with almost 58,000 cases recorded as of Oct 12.
State Health, Welfare, Women Empowerment and Family Committee chairman Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud said there were also 49 deaths in the state due to dengue fever.
She said Petaling district recorded the highest number of cases with 21,858 cases followed by Hulu Langat with 12,245 cases, Klang with 10,698 cases and Gombak with 7,497 cases.
Based on these figures, the number of cases in Selangor this year has risen by 77 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Speaking at a press conference after chairing a state-level Dengue Action Plan committee meeting at the State secretariat building here today, Dr Siti Mariah said the rise in the number of cases could be attributed to the state’s dense population.
She said Selangor’s population currently stood at about 6.52 million people and it made up about 20 per cent of the nation’s population.
“There is also a high number of population who were temporarily residing in the state as there were many higher education institutes here.
“There is also much student movements in and out of the state and all these contributed to the rise of dengue cases.”
Apart from this, she said there were many foreign workers in the state and authorities have frequently found their living areas to be breeding spots for the Aedes mosquito.
Dr Siti Mariah said the State through her Health portfolio working together with the Selangor Health Department were constantly identifying locations that could become breeding grounds for the Aedes mosquito.
Among them are abandoned buildings, illegal scrapyards and recycling centres, abandoned vehicles, illegal farms and illegal rubbish dumps.
She said the State had already carried out three new programmes which were the Selangor Gempur Aedes 2019 programme, Selangor Aedes Free at Work and Quarters programme and the biological control programme of the Aedes mosquito with Wolbachia.
The Wolbachia programme was introduced by the Health Ministry earlier this year, whereby Aedes mosquitoes infected with the Wolbachia bacteria were released.
The project was implemented so that infected mosquitoes cannot spread dengue, Zika and Chikungunya.
Wolbachia causes Aedes mosquitoes to be free of the dengue virus and this helps stop the spread of the virus.
The bacteria arrests the development of the virus causing dengue and Chikungunya.
Those with Wolbachia cannot transmit dengue when they bite people.
Siti Mariah also urged everyone in Selangor especially those staying in dengue hotspot areas to take preventive measures to stop the spread of dengue.
“Action will be taken on those found to be responsible if Aedes breeding spots were found at their premises.”