The Asian city-state and island country of Singapore recorded record numbers of the mosquito borne viral disease, dengue fever in 2013, smashing the numbers of their previous worst epidemic recorded in 2005, according to final numbers from the National Environmental Agency.
In the 2005 epidemic, Singapore reported approximately 14,000 cases and 25 deaths; however, from Jan. 1 to Dec. 3, 2013, health officials tallied 22,318 cases during the year, an increase of more than a third compared to 2005.
The good news was, the case fatality rate in 2013 was only .03 percent as Singapore health officials reported only seven deaths during the year.
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) says on their recent fact sheet that they currently estimate there may be 50–100 million dengue infections worldwide every year, researchers from the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust, using cartographic approaches, estimate there to be 390 million dengue infections per year worldwide.