KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: A 5-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy are the latest victims to have died of dengue.

The girl from Pantai Dalam here and the boy from Sungai Buaya in Selangor died last week, bringing the death toll so far this year to 16.

The disease has infected more than 8,000 people so far this year.

Health Ministry's Disease Control director Datuk Dr Hasan Abdul Rahman said six areas showed an increase in dengue cases last week.

They are Labuan, Selangor, Terengganu, Sarawak, Malacca and Perak.

Between March 2 and 8, the number of reported dengue cases were 705 with two deaths as compared with 814 cases the previous week.

"We need to seriously combat dengue and this can only be done with the co-operation of the public," Dr Hasan said.

He said the ministry's target was to reduce dengue cases to 600 a week.

Of the 239 premises which were found to be breeding Aedes mosquitos, more than 90 per cent were in houses and shops.

Dr Hasan said 100 compound notices involving RM31,800 in fines, and 36 notices had been issued to errant owners of premises.

To create awareness, the ministry distributed more than 56,000 pamphlets last week to educate the public on preventive measures.

"We also conducted 15 gotong-royong with the involvement of more than 2,000 people in dengue hotspots and places where there are major breakouts," said Dr Hasan.