Children of Nearly Every Household in Three Pagoda Pass Suffer from Dengue Fever

July 4, 2014

WCRP: Children under 15 years-old are suffering from dengue fever in nearly every household in Three Pagoda Pass (TPP), on the Thai-Burma border. Health workers from TPP report that children, in particular, are being brought in for treatment at overcrowded medical clinics on the Thai side of TPP. When children come to the clinic with dengue, health workers travel to the child’s home and spray the house with anti-mosquito chemicals.

Children under 15 years-old are the most common victims of the disease, and there may be little relief from sickness until the end of the rainy season. Health workers suggest that children wear long pants when they go to bed, to prevent bites from mosquitos which carry the disease.

Border Health Initiative (BHI) health workers plan to go to TPP and Chaung Zone to provide a mobile clinic and education about dengue fever in the second week of July.

According to a health worker from BHI located in TPP, “The children [are] suffering [from] dengue fever a lot [this year] as last year; almost every household of one or two children is getting [the] fever. For poor families, who live in the farm and their house is not safe, the children from those families suffer more. But we [have] not heard that children [have] died due to dengue fever.”

“My child is three years-old. He gets [a] fever the whole night, and I went to the clinic [on] Thai side this morning. A doctor found that he has dengue fever and told me to check [my son] into the Sangkhlaburi hospital. Then, [health workers] went to our house to do anti-mosquito spraying around our house. My child had to check his blood three times, and a doctor asked [us] to go to the hospital every four days. Now my child is getting better”, said a woman from TPP.

Due to the increase of mosquitos in rainy season, food, and unclean environments, people are suffering from dengue fever. Symptoms of the disease include first a fever, followed by headaches, muscle pain, malaise, as well as a rash on the neck, face, chest, and limbs. Health workers instruct residents that if they see such symptoms with their children, they should go to the clinic or hospital quickly for treatment.

“In Mae Ka Thar Karen village, Three Pagoda Pass, 40 children in primary school suffer from dengue fever”, according to a priest from Sangkhlaburi. Mae Ka Thar Village is home to 100 households, and the village primary school has 60 students.

With similar conditions to Three Pagoda Pass, the American Specialist Children’s Hospital in Moulmein has been overflowing with children stricken with dengue fever. Last week in Wae Zin Village, which is located in a New Mon State Party controlled area, such high numbers of students and teachers were suffering from the disease that they had to close the school. In Yay Ngan Gyi Village, Yebyu Township, Tenasserim Region, nearly all residents of the village are suffering from dengue fever.

Last year, due to unseasonably warm and wet weather, cases of dengue fever increased in Mon State and other areas of Burma.

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News