By Noppporn Wong-Anan SINGAPORE, March 19 (Reuters) - Infectious diseases are on the rise and killing more people worldwide because of unruly urbanisation and the failure of governments to control mosquito populations in tropical regions, a WHO expert said on Thursday. Duane Gubler, a World Health Organization (WHO) adviser, said greater air travel had also contributed to the spread of dengue, chikungunya and other infectious diseases. "Policymakers in the developing world didn't foresee the issue, they gave it a lot of lip service," said Gubler, who has worked on tropical infectious diseases in Asia for over 30 years. "If you ask any minister of health in Southeast Asia, they will say dengue is one of the most important health problems. But if you ask them how much resources they put in, very little," said Gubler, a professor at the National University of Singapore. Dengue outbreaks have risen in Asia Pacific in the past year, killing three times more people than in recent years, another WHO official said last week at a workshop in Singapore. Last year 3,255 people died of the disease in the agency's Southeast Asia countries grouping, which also includes South Asia and North Korea as well as Indonesia, Thailand and Timor Leste. Gubler said the jet plane is the main culprit for the spread of several infectious diseases, including chikungunya, which was first discovered in the 1950s in Africa and re-emerged in the 2000s across Southeast and South Asia. People who work overseas or travel frequently are carriers of such diseases. Though not a killer disease, chikungunya, an African dialect meaning "that which bends up," brings severe joint pains to patients and can put them out of work for months, causing substantial socioeconomic impact, a WHO report said. Communicable diseases from malaria to HIV/AIDS are responsible for 54 percent of deaths globally, while non-communicable diseases, from cancers to heart disease are responsible for 33 percent, according to WHO. Gubler said Singapore is very active in fighting infectious diseases as it is surrounded by mosquito-infested countries and is home to hundreds of thousands of migrant workers. "We envision the need for Southeast Asia, at least, to develop better infrastructure to deal with these diseases so that they can contain them in their countries before they spread," he said, adding it would take years for an available dengue vaccine. So far five vaccines are being tried, one undergoing a clinical study by Sanofi Pasteur that could be first on the market in five to seven years, said Gubler, who chairs the Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Board of Counselors. "When we made the decision to develop a vaccine and the vaccine experts in that meeting were asked how long it would take to develop a vaccine, they said 10 years. Thirty-two years later we are still saying almost ten years," he said. (Editing by Neil Chatterjee and Sanjeev Miglani)
Riot policemen use their shields to hold back protesters during a demonstration outside the U.S. embassy in Manila March 19, 2009. The protesters were demanding the immediate termination of the Visiting ...
