Seminar talks satellite-based dengue fever warning system

It was the
first of its kind to discuss how to expand the system from Vietnam to other Asian
countries.

Funded by
the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme, the project is
developed by a consortium led by HR Wallingford with partners such as the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Vietnamese Health Ministry.

Vice
Director of the Dang Quang Tan said the
Vietnamese Health Ministry highly values initiative and technical assistance from
the project, contributing to the common regional efforts to fight dengue fever.

UNDP Deputy
Resident Representative in Vietnam Sitara Syed said the disease outbreak is
developing complicatedly with uncertainties due to the impact of climate change,
and that is why new tools need to be used to curb its spread.

Running on
website platform, could forecast dengue fever outbreak before six months
and has been introduced to partners in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Dengue fever
is a mosquito-borne and the world’s fastest-spreading disease caused by the
virus. It is now present in over 150 countries, about 40 percent of the world’s
population, and causes an estimated loss of around 9 billion USD each year. The
Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific are the hardest-hit.

In Vietnam, dengue
fever morbidity has more than doubled since 2000, affecting 170,000 people and resulted
in 38 deaths last year./.