Regional dengue outbreak unprecedented - SPC

Transcript

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community, or SPC, says the number of dengue fever outbreaks in the region over the past year is unprecedented.

The team leader for surveillance at SPC, Adam Roth, says in the last 14 months, all four types of dengue fever have circulated the region at different times.

Dr Roth told Mary Baines more research needs to be done on what has caused the current outbreak, but says it could have been influenced by humidity, heat or urbanisation.

ADAM ROTH: The situation in the region is really unprecedented. Currently there are five countries where you have circulation of two dengue types, dengue one and dengue three. And also if you look at the past 14 months, you've had something like 14 dengue epidemics, and furthermore if you look at mosquito-borne viruses, you have had three Chikungunya outbreaks and two Zika virus outbreaks. So the whole situation is that there are quite a lot of outbreaks regionally for the moment.

MARY BAINES: So why has this year been so bad?

AR: During 2012, for the first time, we saw all four dengue types circulate during one year. And then as if I say if you draw it out for the past 14 months, you have quite a lot. The reason for this is complicated, I would say there are many causes to this. We're dealing with mosquito-borne viruses, and to explain this you have to see that there's a relationship between the mosquitos carrying the virus and the humans who are susceptible to the virus. There would be things that influence how many mosquitos we have, such as humidity and heat and climate. But what is important for how much the virus is spreading is susceptibility among the populations, how many are likely or possible to get the infection. And now we're having the dengue 3 that is spreading in the region. And that hasn't been seen in the region for over 20 years. So you'd have many people who are susceptible to it.

MB: So is there any way of seeing how this might escalate? What has the rate of increase been?

AR: That is difficult. I mean, we need to know much more about this. In terms of burdens for the countries, you asked me for the number of deaths. There won't be very many deaths, but there will be very many people affected and being sick for quite a long while. So considering all these people being sick and having fever for a long while, it is a big burden for the countries and for the health systems. And then to foresee how it increases, that is difficult to say. We really need to do more research in what is causing the increase - whether it's urbanisation or climate or just mosquitos spreading, we need to know more about the mosquitos in the region.

MB: Ok, and what can be done to try and stop this outbreak?

AR: At SPC we are working primarily with epidemic intelligence, in trying to detect any kind of information early that could help stop the outbreak. If you get in early in an outbreak it's more easy to control it. So we're helping the countries building networks to share early outbreak information. The other thing we're doing is to earlier also confirm what kind of outbreak it is. We are supporting laboratories, building networks of referral between laboratories in the region.