Posted on: Wednesday, January 2, 2002

Editorial
Battle against dengue good for whole Pacific

Health officials in French Polynesia have declared a victory over their dengue fever epidemic. That's good news for Hawai'i, which was caught off guard by an outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease last year.

Though Hawai'i's dengue outbreak was locally transmitted, disease detectives traced many of the cases back to the South Pacific. And so news of French Polynesia's decline suggests a reduced threat of imported cases.

That's a good way to start the New Year.

The latest tallies report 96 confirmed cases in Hawai'i, including 71 on Maui, 21 on O'ahu and 4 on Kaua'i. Though the numbers have crept up steadily since dengue emerged in East Maui last summer, Hawai'i's outbreak has been dwarfed by Tahiti's close to 30,000 cases.

Surfers and members of a hula halau who visited Tahiti are believed to have brought dengue back to Hawai'i, where they were bitten by local mosquitoes that transmitted the virus to other people.

To their credit, Hawai'i's state health officials attacked the outbreak with an aggressive dengue surveillance, education and mosquito abatement effort. However, our ties to the South Pacific mean there's a constant threat of new flareups.

For now, though, we can rest assured that French Polynesia's health authorities are getting a grip on their epidemic. As for other dengue hot spots, the disease continues to thrive in parts of Southeast Asia, South America, the South Pacific and the Caribbean.

So keep emptying those water containers, tires, bromeliads and other mosquito breeding places, and let's have a dengue-free 2002.