SINGAPORE —  The number of dengue cases reported in Singapore last week fell for the seventh straight week but the mosquito population has risen in the last three weeks, the National Environment Agency (NEA) said on Wednesday (Sept 30).

There were 593 dengue cases reported last week, a drop of 78 cases from the week before.

As of Sept 29, there have been 30,431 reported cases of dengue this year.

The weekly number of reported dengue cases has dropped 56 per cent in the past seven weeks, while the number of dengue clusters has declined by 48 per cent in the same period.

But NEA said its Gravitrap surveillance system, which monitors the Aedes aegypti mosquito population at residential areas, has detected a 12 per cent rise in the mosquito population over the last three weeks.

The number of dengue clusters islandwide has decreased to 195, which is 11 fewer than a week ago. These dengue clusters were closed:

• 384-case cluster at Aljunied Road / Geylang Road 

• 332-case cluster at Bukit Panjang Ring Road 

• 321-case cluster at Arthur Road 

• 148-case cluster at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3 

• 140-case cluster at Mei Chin Road 

• 135-case cluster at Balmoral Crescent 

• 109-case cluster at Elliot Road 

• 103-case cluster at Bedok Reservoir Road 

• 99-case cluster at Birch Road 

• 55-case cluster at Yishun Ring Road 

• 53-case cluster at Eunos Avenue 8 

Since the start of this year, NEA has closed about 92 per cent of the dengue clusters. This amounts to 2,348 of 2,543 clusters.

It has also observed a slower rate of disease transmission at some of the larger dengue clusters, such as the 179-case cluster at Balam Road, with an average of fewer than one case reported a day in the past two weeks.

But the total number of dengue clusters reported islandwide still remains high, with large dengue clusters located at:

• Arnasalam Chetty Road / Kim Yam Road

• Aljunied Road / Geylang Road / Guillemard Road

• Ang Mo Kio Avenue 2

• East Coast Road / Jalan Baiduri

• Bedok North Avenue 1 

Intensive vector control operations are ongoing at these locations, NEA said.