Friday, December 21, 2007

Dengue Situation In East Coast Affects Turnout At Showflats

Source : Channel NewsAsia, 21 December 2007

According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), over 5,000 households have been penalised for breeding the Aedes mosquito at home this year.

This is double the number in 2006.

In the areas near East Coast Road, the high number of dengue infections seems to have affected property sales.

Industry players have noticed that the number of people viewing showflats there has dropped by some 30 percent.

A road separates a new private residential development from the construction site where 14 foreign workers were hit by dengue recently.

Property agents believe that, the new project, which was launched last week, could turn out to be very popular.

But reports of the dengue outbreak have cut the turnout at showflats by 30 percent.

Geraldine Tan, Associate Director, C&H Group, said, "Last week, we (had) many keen buyers who liked our project, but because of this dengue fever problem...they're supposed to bring their family members over, they called us and said they wanted to delay until after the dengue situation is over, then they will come by."

The NEA has despatched its officers to check the East Coast area over the past 20 days.

They also visited over 200 households to look out for potential mosquito breeding sites.

Between January and November this year, some 5,100 households were fined for breeding mosquitoes.

There were only 2,400 households fined over the same period last year.

So far this year, the number of dengue cases has gone up to almost 8,700, with eight fatalities. - CNA/ms

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