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Dengue Fever

Volume 494: debated on Thursday 25 June 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the NHS’s expenditure on the treatment of dengue fever in the last 12 months. (280698)

There has been no estimate made of national health service expenditure on the treatment of dengue fever in the past 12 months.

Dengue fever does not naturally occur in the United Kingdom. Cases in the UK are imported and are associated with travel to areas where the disease is endemic, such as, South East Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean and South and Central America.

The following table shows the number of cases diagnosed in the UK in 2007 and 2008 by the Health Protection Agency’s special pathogens reference unit.

2007

2008

England

137

153

Northern Ireland

1

Scotland

20

9

Wales

7

4

Grand total

164

167

Source:

Data provided by the Health Protection Agency as at 17 June 2009.