Laman Utama iDengue
iDengue’s daily case counter. Pretty cool stuff. Click to link to their site.When this article was initially published in August 2014, dengue cases were at an all-time high with almost 60,000 cases and 110 deaths between January and August that year, with some sources claiming that it has reached “epidemic proportions“. Our dengue drama even earned us a little video segment on the BBC in September where it is mentioned that there are an average of 250 cases reported daily.
But flash forward to April 2015, how are we doing on the dengue front? 
Worse, apparently. According to iDengue, a new (at least, it wasn’t around when we first wrote this article) nationwide portal to track Dengue cases; we’ve recorded 38,000 cases and 117 deaths from January 4th – April 22nd this year.
That is more than ONE DEATH A DAY, ugaiz!
Even while keeping in mind that some deaths might have been carried over from the previous year, we have reached almost 2/3 of the cases recorded till August last year, and we still have four months to go! If you’re feeling particularly geeky, morbid, or both; iDengue also has a daily case counter which breaks down cases by state every 24 hours.
What we’ve noticed is that every time a dengue panic happens, you’ll usually start hearing or reading expert proven advice on how to prevent it “because it’s been proven since your grandmother’s time”. With apologies to everyone’s grandmother, we decided to put all this “advice” through the acid test by running them through Professor Dr. Sazaly bin Abu Bakar of the Tropical Infectious Diseases Research and Education Centre (TIDREC) at Universiti Malaya.
So does papaya leaf help in curing dengue? Can we be vaccinated against it? Well let’s find out together-gether, starting with….

1. Eh, if you get bitten by the zebra mosquito sure kena Dengue already!

Well, this is an easy one. It’s totally untrue. The “zebra mosquito” is known as Aedes aegypti, identified by the white stripes on its legs.

Aedes_aegypti dengue mosquito
THESE white stripes.
While it’s true that they are responsible for spreading the dengue virus in this region, they don’t naturally carry it; meaning that they have to first acquire the virus from an infected host.
How do you know if you’re infected? Well…

 2. I should probably go see a doctor when I start finding red spots on my skin.

Image result for dengue mosquito campaign

No, no you shouldn’t.
You should definitely be heading to the emergency room at the nearest hospital because this is a sign of acute dengue fever. And trust us, by this stage, there’s nothing a-cute about it. Not even remotely a-dorable.
For reference, here’s the list of principle dengue symptoms courtesy of the CDC:
  • High fever and at least two of the following:
    • Severe headache
    • Severe eye pain (behind eyes)
    • Joint pain
    • Muscle and/or bone pain
    • Rash
    • Mild bleeding manifestation (e.g., nose or gum bleed, petechiae, or easy bruising)
    • Low white cell count
And here’s a list of acute symptoms:
  • Severe abdominal pain or persistent vomiting
  • Red spots or patches on the skin
  • Bleeding from nose or gums
  • Vomiting blood
  • Black, tarry stools (feces, excrement)
  • Drowsiness or irritability
  • Pale, cold, or clammy skin
  • Difficulty breathing
  • According to Prof. Sazaly, first-time dengue infections are generally milder but subsequent infections are more severe with a risk of developing a potentially-fatal dengue hemorrhagic fever.
During a first bout of dengue, the body’s immune system starts developing antibodies to combat the virus. Upon recovery, the body “remembers” how to fight this infection and is able to react more rapidly the next time it appears.
So why is a second infection worse?
Ironically, it’s this “memory” function that causes it. There are actually 4 strains of Dengue (we’ll explain more of that later) and this “memory function” only provides immunity from the type that caused the first infection. In a phenomenon called the “Antibody-dependent enhancement of infection,” being infected by a different serotype actually makes it worse as the antibodies help the virus infect the host cells more efficiently. We illustrate this with this easy-to-read infographic below or you can read up more about this here and here:
naturedotcom
Pictured: Science.
Oh by the way, did we say four dengue strains? We meant FIVE.

3. There is a new Dengue virus??? WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!

The good news is that there is no new dengue virus. In fact Prof. Sazaly says that it’s been “the same virus for the past 1,400 years.”
The not-so-good news is that while there isn’t a new virus, there’s a new serotype.