Macao has recorded its ninth imported case of dengue fever amid a wider battle against mosquito-borne diseases in the Greater Bay Area.
The patient is a 13-year-old boy from Taipa who recently visited Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Local authorities have dispatched health professionals to implement mosquito eradication measures near the patient’s home at Edificio Jardim de Wa Bao.
The case comes as Macao and surrounding areas work to limit the spread of chikungunya and dengue fever. From 3 to 8 August, the Health Bureau launched a campaign in collaboration with community organisations to raise awareness of disease control protocols. According to the Bureau, authorities inspected over 14,000 households and found 1,360 containers with stagnant water, 160 of which contained mosquito larvae.
[See more: Macao is at a ‘critical’ juncture in chikungunya prevention, says health official]
Meanwhile in Guangdong, 1,387 new cases of chikungunya fever have been recorded in the past week. The province’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention released a statement on Friday warning residents that “failure to clear accumulated water, refusal to isolate and refusal to cooperate with disinfection may touch the legal red line.”
According to the statement, violators may be subject to fines up to 30,000 yuan (US$4,200) and businesses may have their health licences stripped.
The centre also published a map of high mosquito activity, which showed that densely populated areas in Pearl River Delta, eastern Guangdong and western Guangdong are most at risk. However, in Foshan, the disease is showing signs of abating, while over 90 percent of the city’s chikungunya fever patients have fully recovered, said city officials in a press conference Saturday. No severe cases or deaths have been recorded.
