By Nopporn Wong-Anan SINGAPORE, March 12 (Reuters) - Outbreaks of dengue fever in Asian countries such as Indonesia are increasing because of climate change, a World Health Organization official said on Thursday. WHO dengue coordinator Chusak Prasittisuk said changes in rainfall and rapid urbanisation in the Asia-Pacific region have brought dengue outbreaks to countries that never had it before, and more cases in those that have been fighting it for decades. "In Indonesia, in the old days, you used to have a season of rain, but in the past few years it has rained more almost around the year," Chusak told Reuters in an interview. "The more rain we have, the more dengue cases we have seen." Dengue, the most widespread tropical disease after malaria, is transmitted by mosquitoes and causes fever, headaches and agonising muscle and joint pains, which can lead to uncontrolled bleeding and death. Many of the victims are children. In Thailand, rapid urbanisation and a lack of public piped water meant people were increasingly storing water in tanks, a favourable breeding site for Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes -- the only insect that carries the dengue virus. "They love clean water," Chusak said, adding that their eggs can hide in crevices of earthen jars and survive for 6-7 months without water in tropical climates and at room temperatures. They hatch into larvae in water when it rains. "They can spread to all over Thailand when these jars are transported from factories to end users hundreds of kilometres away," he said on the sidelines of a WHO dengue workshop in Singapore. WORSE THAN REPORTED Chusak said state health bodies in its grouping of Southeast Asia nations should be more accurate in their reporting and step up efforts to fight the disease, which killed more than 3,200 in the region last year. "Reports from some member countries, including India, require validation of information," Chusak said. "The situation may be worse than what was reported," he said, after reported fatalities in the region in 2008 rose nearly 3 times from 2003. India has the biggest population among 11 member states in the WHO's Southeast Asia grouping, which includes most of South Asia, but its reported cases were a tenth of Indonesia's in 2008. The number of cases reported were mostly from the capital New Delhi because Indian state governments handle their own health services and did not feel obliged to report their dengue cases to the central government, WHO officials said. India, a country of 1 billion people, reported 12,524 cases last year, compared with 135,883 cases reported by Indonesia, a country of 230 million, for the same period, WHO statistics show. (Editing by Bill Tarrant)
Well-wishers hold portraits of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok March 12, 2009. His Majesty the King has been admitted overnight at Siriraj Hospital before his annual medical ...
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