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Healthmap.org: Charting Dengue’s Progress

 

 



# 4792

 

 

With a handful of reports of Dengue Fever here in Florida, along with a few human EEE (Eastern Equine Encephalitis) cases as well, I was happy to see our local mosquito spraying truck crisscrossing my neighborhood last night.

 

Gone are the greasy-oily-smoke pesticide belching trucks of my youth, however.  Today my county’s mosquito control agency uses ULV (Ultra Low Volume) spray, which delivers a minimum effective amount of pesticide in an ultra-fine nearly invisible mist.  

 

While no one likes to see pesticides being sprayed, tropical diseases are a minor concern here in Florida only due to an aggressive mosquito control program going back before WWII.

 

Dengue Fever has seen a tremendous global growth over the past 60 years, moving out of the tropics into dozens of subtropical and even temperate regions.

 

The World Health Organization has this to say about its global spread in its Dengue and Dengue haemorrhagic fever fact sheet.

 

The incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades. Some 2.5 billion people – two fifths of the world's population – are now at risk from dengue. WHO currently estimates there may be 50 million dengue infections worldwide every year.

 

In 2007 alone, there were more than 890 000 reported cases of dengue in the Americas, of which 26 000 cases were DHF.

 

The disease is now endemic in more than 100 countries in Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, South-east Asia and the Western Pacific. South-east Asia and the Western Pacific are the most seriously affected. Before 1970 only nine countries had experienced DHF epidemics, a number that had increased more than four-fold by 1995.

 

Not only is the number of cases increasing as the disease is spreading to new areas, but explosive outbreaks are occurring. In 2007, Venezuela reported over 80 000 cases, including more than 6 000 cases of DHF.

You’ll find an interactive map charting Dengue’s progress around the world on the CDC’s Dengue page, a collaboration between Healthmap and the CDC.

 

While you’ll want to explore the map yourself, I’ve taken a few screen shots to illustrate the kind of data you’ll find.

 

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The Latin America `quick view’ gives us a snapshot of Dengue in the Americas, including its recent encroachment into the United States.

 

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Clicking on any of the pins brings up a window with links to recent reports from that area.   In this case, I clicked on Key West, Florida.

 

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You’ll also find a scrolling list of recent Dengue Alerts below the map, with clickable links for recent reports.

 

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Although comprehensive, and extremely useful, this mapping tool doesn’t capture all of the Dengue reports from around the world.   Their disclaimer reads:

 

This map may be used as a guide for the assessment of dengue risk throughout the world. The dark blue regions represent areas of ongoing transmission risk as defined by CDC based on data from Ministries of Health, WHO and other international health organizations, journals, and knowledgeable experts (last updated in 2008 for the CDC Yellow Book).

 

Recent reports of local and regional dengue transmission collected by HealthMap are shown as red markers with links to the respective reports. A lack of recent reports for any given area does not indicate that no transmission is occurring, particularly in the many risk map areas where dengue is endemic. For more information on dengue, visit the CDC Dengue Page.

 

Nevertheless, this is a terrific resource. And it isn’t just for Dengue.   

 

http://healthmap.org/en/  provides maps, and updates on a wide variety of disease reports from around the world. 

 

Check it out.

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