Singapore - Experts from 22 Asia-Pacific countries are meeting in Singapore to finalize an ambitious eight-year battle plan against dengue fever, participants said Tuesday. Organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Singapore's National Environment Agency, the WHO member countries are refining the Asia-Pacific Dengue Strategic Plan formulated in March 2006 for South-East Asia and the Western Pacific.
Results of the week-long meeting will be presented in September to regional health ministers.
"The final plan will be a roadmap for the two regions, said Dr John Ehrenberg, adviser to WHO's Western Pacific office.
"It will help us identify gaps or things we may have missed," he noted.
It is crucial that the plan be compelling enough to attract both the money and political will to fight the disease, said Ehrenberg.
"It is an urban disease, a product of our global village, where people move around a lot," said Dr Michael Nathan, chief of vector ecology at WHO's department of control of neglected tropical diseases.
The Asia-Pacific region accounts for more than 70 per cent of dengue cases, WHO said. Some 50 million to 100 million cases have been reported worldwide annually, 30 times higher than 50 years ago.
There have been 1,734 dengue cases in Singapore during the first four months of this year, 36 per cent more than the same period of 2007.
The plan is expected to cover strategies on surveillance, case management, changing behaviour and combating the dengue-spreading Aedes mosquito.
