Dengue fever kills three refugees
A Karen Women’s Organisation staff member who has just returned from Nu Poe refugee camp estimated that there are as many as 200 dengue fever cases. Karen News is led to understand that two Nu Poe camp residents died in recent days from complications associated with dengue fever.
In a separate incident Karen News has learnt that a 2-year-old girl from Mae la refugee camp north of Mae Sot has died from dengue fever.
A medic working with children in Mae Tao Clinic on the Thai Burma border said that more people are coming for treatment for dengue fever.
“We are starting to see cases [dengue fever] everyday since the rains started last week,” the medic at Mae Tao Clinic confirmed.
Earlier this week The Bangkok Post quoted the permanent secretary for the Thai Public Health Ministry, Narong Sahametapat, as saying that “more than 4,000 people contracted dengue fever last week, the first seven days of the rainy season.”
The Thai Public Health Ministry, quoted in The Bangkok Post, estimate that between 100,000 and 120,000 people are expected to contract the disease this year. In 2012, there were 74,250 cases and 79 fatalities.
