Dengue fever claims 113 lives in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 June 2010, 12:32 GMT]
The number of deaths due to dengue in the country has increased to 113 while the number of diagnosed patients has increased to 17,411. The highest number of patients, 2,354, was diagnosed from Colombo, the most developed district of the country. The districts of Jaffna and Gampaha have also shown high prevalence of the disease, 2181 diagnosed in Jaffna and 2,219 in Gampaha. In Mannaar district 45 positive cases of dengue have been detected last week, but no death has been reported so far, according to the latest statistics issued by the Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry.

The month of June has shown a rise in the number of cases to 1,943 due to the floods last month in most parts of the country, although it has been declining from a high of 4,672 in January to a lowest of 1,888 in May.

Jaffna and Gampaha districts also showed high prevalence of the disease. The number of patients diagnosed in Jaffna district is 2,181 while 2,129 were found from Gampaha district.

There were 1,253 cases of dengue detected from Ratnapura district while 1,048 cases had been reported from Batticaloa district.

The outbreak of dengue was remarkable in Kurunegala, Puththa’lam, Ampaa’rai and Kalutara districts as well, according to the report of the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health.