In a follow-up to a report a little more than a month ago, Thailand health officials recently reported the number of dengue cases has topped 10,000 for 2018.
Since the beginning of the year through May 15, a total of 10,446 cases were reported from 77 provinces (morbidity rate was 15.97 / 100,000 population). There were 15 deaths (morbidity rate was 0.02 / 100,000 population).
This is broken down further:
- 6,140 dengue fever cases and no deaths
- 4,165 dengue hemorrhagic fever cases and two deaths
- 141 dengue shock syndrome cases and 13 deaths
Overall, Phuket has seen the highest morbidity, followed by Krabi and Nakornsrithamarat.
Dengue fever is an infectious disease carried by mosquitoes and caused by any of four related dengue viruses. This disease used to be called “break-bone fever” because it sometimes causes severe joint and muscle pain that feels like bones are breaking.
People get the dengue virus from the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito. It is not contagious from person to person.
There are three types of dengue fever in order of less severe to most: the typical uncomplicated dengue fever, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHS) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS).
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates there may be 50–100 million dengue infections worldwide every year. However, research from the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust, using cartographic approaches, estimate there to be 390 million dengue infections per year worldwide.
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