State health Executive Councillor Dr Daroyah Alwi said the department had no choice but to outsource pest control services to carry out fogging in all the 12 local authorities .

“Because of the rainy season, we are expecting a rise in the number of dengue cases. As a proactive measure, we have informed the councils to hire pest control services as we have a shortage of manpower,” she told FMT.

Daroyah was responding to the health ministry alert today that six states had reported an increase in the number of dengue cases in the third week of January.

The six identified by Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah were Selangor, Perak, Kedah, Pahang, Penang and Kelantan.

He said from Jan 15 to 21, a total of 2,053 cases were reported in the six states, 177 cases (9.43%) more than the 1,876 cases in the previous week (Jan 8-14).

Noor said six deaths were reported in the third week, bringing the cumulative number of deaths to 13 in the first three weeks of the year in the country. This compares with 23 deaths in the corresponding period last year.

In Selangor, Daroyah said the dengue hotspots were in Petaling, Hulu Langat, Klang and Gombak.

From Jan 1 to 21, the Selangor Health Department recorded 1,133 dengue cases, resulting in two deaths.

Daroyah said some districts were seeing outbreaks of more than 20 cases of dengue that needed immediate attention.

“The government has approved an allocation of RM600,000, which was disbursed to all the councils in January.

“The government has also increased the budget to combat dengue from RM1.5 million last year to RM5 million this year.”