Dengue fever on rise in Laos
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Dengue fever has claimed 74 lives this year in Laos, where health officials are warning of a rising death toll from the mosquito-borne viral disease, media reports said yesterday.
The country has already recorded more than 27,000 cases of dengue, which has also seen a resurgence this year in Thailand, where health officials anticipate a record high of 120,000 cases this year, the Vientiane Times reported.
Laos lost its rising political star, Maj-General Sannhahak Phomvihane, the 45-year-old son of former President Kaysone Phomvihane, to dengue last week, according to informed sources.
“He got dengue fever in Attapeu, a southern province of Laos, where he had gone for an official trip,” an Asian diplomat said. Sannhahak died at Vientiane Hospital last Wednesday. He was deputy defence minister and a member of the central committee of the Communist Party at the time of his death.
