900 households fined as more mosquito breeding habitats found in homes

SINGAPORE — Around 900 households have been fined at least S$200 for the breeding of mosquitoes as of May this year, as the authorities step up efforts to stem the spike in dengue cases.

In a media statement on Sunday (June 23), the National Environment Agency (NEA) said it conducted more than 372,000 inspections islandwide from January to May this year. During this period, the agency uncovered about 6,500 instances of mosquito breeding habitats.

The NEA said that the proportion of breeding detected in homes in cluster areas was 74 per cent, which it noted was more than the national average of 60 per cent.

The highest proportion of breeding found in homes in a cluster area was 85 per cent.

The NEA identified this as the Woodlands cluster which includes Woodlands Avenue 6, Circle, Crescent and Drives 60, 70 and 72.

Not only did this cluster have the highest number of dengue cases at 199 as of April 2, the NEA found nine instances of “profuse mosquito breeding” which saw some homes unintentionally breeding at least 50 mosquito larvae within uncovered containers.  

NOT A ‘LOCALISED’ THREAT

Highlighting the seriousness of the situation, the NEA said that as of June 17, the number of active dengue clusters has more than doubled in the past month to 112.

While there are certain geographical clusters which “accounted for the bulk of the increase in dengue cases”, such as at Woodlands, Geylang, Jalan Lembah Thomson and Chai Chee, the NEA warns that there has been a general uptrend in dengue cases across the island.  

“The dengue transmission is therefore not localised, and everyone has to be alert to the threat,” said the agency.

Residents living within these cluster areas are encouraged by the NEA to protect themselves by applying mosquito repellent regularly, and keeping their homes clean by getting rid of stagnant water.

To safeguard public health, NEA said it will not hesitate to take enforcement actions against anyone found to have created conditions favourable for the breeding of mosquitoes.

“As we are in the traditional peak dengue season, concerted community action is urgently needed to bring down the Aedes mosquito population, to prevent more people from being infected with the dengue virus,” said the NEA.

NEA’s statement comes as TODAY’s Big Read this week took a deep dive into Singapore’s dengue problem, looking at why it has refused to go away and what is to come in the relentless battle against the virus.

FOUR-FOLD INCREASE

As of June 15 this month, there have been a total of 5,184 reported dengue cases this year.

“This is about four times the 1,242 dengue cases we saw in the same period last year,” said the NEA.

Within that week alone, there were already 467 reported cases of dengue.

“Singapore has not seen such a high weekly number of cases since March 2016,” said the agency.

Similarly, the NEA also reported that the number of cases of dengue haemorrhagic fever is also at a high of 41 cases.

The upward trend in the number of dengue cases, said the NEA, comes after two years of low dengue case numbers.