by Zheng Xiaoyi     

    SINGAPORE, May 31 (Xinhua) - Singapore has been stepping up a fight against the escalating dengue problem, which has claimed its first fatality here this year.

    Five hundred environmental health officers have been assigned to inspect homes islandwide for dengue breeding on a daily basis, and another 150 officers have been tasked to search places like vacant premises and open land.

    The city-state's environment watchdog, the National Environment Agency (NEA), said this week that a further 150 staff will be roped in if the situation worsens.

    The number of dengue cases has risen sharply in the clean and green country this month, with an average of 167 cases reported each week, about three times the number in the same period last year, according to the NEA.

    A record number of 259 cases were reported last week ended May 26, a figure that crossed the "warning level" of 256 cases a week and indicated the number of cases may continue to rise because of the current hot weather, added the NEA.

    There have been about 1,800 Singaporeans contracted dengue this year so far, and last month an 85-year-old man died from the disease, which is spread by the Aedes mosquito and is an endemic disease to the tropics.

    For the 4.5-million-population island country, the figure was high, considering the total number of cases reported for the whole of last year was about 3,120, the lowest since 2004.

    The NEA, along with other government agencies, launched an islandwide anti-dengue exercise last weekend involving almost 100 outreach activities in 60 constituencies. Members of Parliament (MPs) and grassroots leaders made door-to-door visits to spread the message of dengue prevention to residents.

    The Singapore government will distribute to 1.2 million homes an educational package, which includes discount vouchers for insecticides and anti-mosquito products.

    It also urges the public to do their part to stop the spread of the mosquito-borne disease, calling them to frequently check and remove stagnant water in their homes to get rid of the Aedes mosquito in the coming months.

    Changing water in vases and bowls every alternate day and emptying excess water in flowerpot plates daily are some steps advocated by the NEA to households to practise.

    But the NEA statistics showed that more public housing flats and condominiums were breeding mosquitoes in the past four months compared with the same period last year.

    People will be fined 100 Singapore dollars (about 66 U.S. dollars) if found breeding mosquitoes in their homes for first offense and 200 Singapore dollars (about 130 U.S. dollars) for subsequent breaches.

    Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) said that dengue cases peak every six years, based on trends. Singapore experienced a dengue epidemic in 2005.

    "2006 was clearly seen as an inter-epidemic year" and this year marks the start of a new cycle, "if the trend is left unchecked, disease momentum will cause a worsening situation for 2008 and subsequent years," the MOH said.

    Dengue fever has four types of virus, from stereotype 1 to 4. Since December, there has been a shift in the predominant dengue type from DEN-1 to DEN-2.

    This could be one of the factors for the recent outbreak, as the immunity among Singaporeans over the past years against DEN-1 virus "offers little or no protection" against DEN-2 virus, the MOH added.

    The endemic disease outbreak is not unique to Singapore, and countries in the Asia-Pacific region, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, have also been hit by similar outbreaks.

    According to The Straits Times, a local English daily, at least89 people in the region have been killed by the disease in the first five months of this year.

    Dengue killed 44 Malaysians in the first four months of this year while 12,900 residents in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, had dengue between January and May, the newspaper said.

    Dengue is emerging rapidly as one of the most important public health problems in the region. Nearly 1.8 billion people in the region are at risk as compared to an estimated total of 2.5 billion globally, according to the NEA.