Editorial

Abstract

The arthropod menace is hovering around us once again. Breeding of different species of mosquitoes in urban and semi - urban localities is posing a threat ,and if preventive measures are not adopted immediately, the situation can become explosive once again. Diseases like malaria, filaria, dengue and, may be, yellow fever can become rampant if measures are not adopted on a war footing to curb these scourges. Falciprim malaria and dengue haemorrhagic fever are known for evoking a catastrophe leading to a very high case fatality rate. The new dengue disease paradigm is prevalent now in Latin America and the Caribbean sin.ce last year. Its emergence as a major health problem has been most dramatic in the American region. The epidemic of dengue fever with haemorrhagic fever (DHF) and shock syndrome (DSS) from mid August to end of Noveihber, 1996, had occurred in the national capital territory of Delhi, which was the worst ever in Indian history. Type II dengue virus has been identified as the causative agent in a number of clinical samples. There were in all about 10,000 cases with over 400 deaths. Dengue has been known to be endemic in India for over two centuries as a benign and self limiting disease. However, in the recent years, the disease has changed its course, manifesting in a severe form as DHF/DSS wiith increasing frequency.The new lethal manifestation of an old benign disease broke out in Manila in the Philippines for the first time in 1953 - 54. It, then, attacked Bangkok in Thailand in 1958. DHF had been raging in our immediate neighbourhood, Myanmar since 1970. Cambodia has seen a severe outbreak of DHF recently.