Cambodian gov't alerts public over upcoming peak of dengue fever

PHNOM PENH, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government has reminded the public to caution against the upcoming peak of dengue fever, which has killed two people nationwide so far this year, national media said on Sunday.The rainy season started earlier this year, which fueled the spread of the epidemic and brought the number of infected cases to 871 during the first four months, almost two times the number in the same period of last year, according to the Chinese-language newspaper the Jian Hua Daily on Sunday.

Usually, children aged from one to nine years were the most fragile group to the illness, Minister of Health Mam Bun Heng was quoted as saying in the report. He added that some 71 percent of the contaminated cases went to children.

"People should frequently clean their water-saving tanks, kill mosquito eggs in their tanks with pesticide and sleep in anti-mosquito nets," said the minister.

According to official figures, in 2007, a rampant year for the disease in the kingdom, 407 children died of it, out of a total of 39,851 infected cases of minors.