Segamat has been experiencing a high number of Dengue cases during the last few months. You may have noticed the Health Department officials doing residential checks on homes for mosquito breeding grounds and also their regular foggings. Please have a look around your house to remove potential mosquito breeding areas. Everyone needs to help out here.

Some of the areas affected are Taman Segar and Taman Tan Leng Ann. If you know of any other affected areas, please comment here.

Dengue fever is caused by a virus that is transmitted through the bites of infected female Aedes mosquitoes. This virus is not contagious and cannot be spread directly from person to person. There must be a person-to-mosquito-to-another-person pathway. However, presently there is no specific medicine or antibiotic to treat dengue caused by the virus.

It seems that dengue strikes people with low levels of immunity. The body contains two types of blood cells: red and white. White blood cells help to fight off illnesses. Dengue fever decreases the amount of white blood cells, thus exposing the patient to illness.

Some of the symptoms of dengue fever are: very high fever, nausea, headache, rash and dangerously low blood platelets count.

{Quoted from Max Loh's article on Dengue)