Dengue kills 44 people in Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur : Dengue fever has killed 44 people across Malaysia in the first four months of 2007, an increase of more than 100 percent compared to the same period of last year, a health official said Sunday.

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The country saw 900 suspected dengue cases last week, a record high this year, Malaysian health ministry's Parliamentary Secretary Lee Kah Choon said.

The state of Selangor alone reported over 200 cases, followed by Kuala Lumpur and Pinang, he told local reporters in Pinang after launching a health campaign in the capital city of the northern state of Pinang.

That could be attributed to the erratic weather conditions that encouraged breeding of aedes mosquitoes, he said.