Low visitor traffic from South America and diversity of strains in Singapore are among factors cited.
SINGAPORE – Even as dengue numbers soar worldwide, experts say it remains to be seen how the record figures elsewhere will impact the number of infections in Singapore.
In comparison, there were about six million dengue cases worldwide for the whole of 2023, with more than 6,000 dengue-related deaths reported that year.Dengue expert Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at NUS’ Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, said while numbers could potentially spike, this is unlikely due to the relatively low passenger traffic between Latin America and Singapore.
Professor Duane Gubler – who chairs the National Environment Agency’s dengue expert advisory panel and is emeritus professor at Duke-NUS Medical School – pointed to other trends, such as urban growth in tropical cities, with inadequate sewage and waste management providing a habitat for mosquitoes to breed, as well as inadequate public health infrastructure, as the drivers of disease.
Singapore, meanwhile, has seen more than 5,000 dengue cases in the first quarter of 2024 – more than double that of the same period in 2023 – with seven deaths from the disease.Podcast: Climate change need not mean more dengue cases if cities are built better, say experts Prof Tambyah said that while vaccination has been touted as a solution to the disease, dengue vaccine development has been “very tricky” over the years.
Japanese pharmaceutical firm Takeda had previously submitted Qdenga for approval here in 2022, but the Health Sciences Authority in 2023 said the company had withdrawn its application.
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