By Rachel Chan

THE number of people here who caught dengue this year is at its lowest in three years, the National Environment Agency (NEA) said yesterday.

This has bucked the traditional upward swing that NEA had expected, based on a disease cycle it recorded over three decades.

The number of dengue cases usually rises within a five-to seven-year cycle, with the figures rising each year before falling again to start a new cycle.

This disease pattern means that there should be more than 20,000 cases of dengue reported for the whole of this year.

Yet, only 3,272 dengue cases have been reported up to last week, despite high temperatures last month. The number of dengue patients tends to rise in hotter weather.

This year's figure is 15.3 per cent lower than the 3,864 cases in the same period last year. In 2007, 5,886 cases had been recorded by this time.

The number of cases is expected to remain low until the end of the year, the NEA said.

Its head of operations, Mr Tai Ji Choong, credits the drop to the drastic changes made to the agency's dengue-control strategy after a record high of 14,209 cases in 2005.

It found a way to better identify high-risk areas, where it deployed officers and other agencies to search for mosquito breeding sites and destroy them more intensively.

"The good results show that everyone's efforts have paid off," said Mr Tai.

The NEA added that it had managed to keep infections of a less common strain of dengue, known as Dengue-3, from becoming an outbreak.

It is still fighting malaria in Sembawang and Jurong Island.

Starting from three months ago, it required operators of foreign-worker dormitories located in areas vulnerable to malaria to regularly spray the inner and outer walls of buildings with insecticide.

If they fail to do so, they can be fined $2,000.

rachchan@sph.com.sg

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