DENGUE

VADS CORNER — Dengue Fever (DF) and Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) · Malaysia and the region
Online since 15 October 2005 · Comprehensively revised 28 August 2026 · Last updated 9 September 2026

This page was set up in 2005 as a result of the resurgence of dengue worldwide. Twenty years on, dengue is no longer a resurgence — it is Malaysia's persistent epidemic, and by a considerable margin our largest current outbreak burden. In 2026 the country passed a full year's typical caseload before August was out. This revision brings the page up to date: a working clinical reference, the vaccine question that did not exist in 2005, and a resource list rebuilt link by link.

Search the news

Quick links to current coverage of Dengue across the key English-language newspapers in the region.

Malaysia

Singapore

Indonesia

What dengue is

Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral infection, caused by any of four related but distinct virus types (DENV-1 to DENV-4), transmitted by the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquito. Infection with one type gives long-term immunity to that type only, and short-term protection against the others — which is why a second infection with a different type can be more dangerous than the first.

Most infections are mild or produce no symptoms at all. A minority progress to severe dengue, characterised by plasma leakage, bleeding, and organ involvement, which can be fatal without prompt treatment but has a case-fatality rate below 1% with good clinical management.

Malaysian clinical guidelines

These are the primary references for how dengue is actually managed in Malaysia, and the source for the practical advice on Don't Wait for the Fever to Break.

• Clinical Practice Guidelines: Management of Dengue Infection in Adults NEW — Academy of Medicine of Malaysia / Ministry of Health. Warning signs, fluid management, the paracetamol dose ceiling (4g/day) and the reasoning behind it, and NSAID avoidance.
• Clinical Practice Guidelines: Management of Dengue Fever in Children, Second Edition NEW — the paediatric equivalent, with weight-based paracetamol dosing and its own explicit statement of the liver-injury rationale.

Other countries' clinical guidelines

For comparison, since the same disease is managed slightly differently in different health systems.

• Singapore National Dengue Clinical Guideline NEW — published 31 March 2026, the most recent guideline referenced on this page by several months. Developed by the National Centre for Infectious Disease and methodologically validated by the Agency for Care Effectiveness. Covers the same febrile, critical and recovery phases as the Malaysian CPGs, with an explicit section on special populations: the elderly, pregnant women, infants and children.
• CDC — Dengue for Health Care Providers NEW — the US clinical hub, including a downloadable pocket guide for case management organised by patient group and phase. Worth knowing before treating it as directly comparable: the vaccine ACIP recommends for the US is Dengvaxia, not Qdenga — a different vaccine from the one discussed in The Vaccine We Have — and the manufacturer is discontinuing Dengvaxia, with existing stock due to expire in August 2026.

The vaccine question

A dengue vaccine did not exist when this page was first built. One now does, is registered in Malaysia, and is not straightforward. The full argument is in The Vaccine We Have … For Some; the primary sources behind it are listed here for anyone who wants to go further.

• WHO SAGE recommendation on TAK-003 (Qdenga) NEW — September 2023, Journal of Travel Medicine
• TAK-003 immunogenicity, safety and efficacy meta-analysis NEW
• Dengue vaccine deployment into routine immunisation NEW
• MSIDC adult immunisation guideline — dengue NEW — the Malaysian serotype surveillance record and the efficacy figures actually used here
• DPAM position paper on dengue vaccination NEW — Dengue Prevention Advocacy Malaysia, July 2026 edition; the registration conditions, the Act2Care registry, and its removal
• Value-based pricing assessment, Malaysian dengue vaccination (2017) NEW
• Azzeri model: national programme could save RM4 billion over 30 years NEW
• Singapore HSA's published vaccine assessment NEW — shown in full, for comparison with how Malaysia's equivalent process is not
• Qdenga (TAK-003) — seven-year efficacy data from the TIDES Phase III trial NEW — Clinical Trials Arena, November 2025. Protection against virologically confirmed dengue at 61.2% and against hospitalisation at 84.1% at 4.5 years; a booster at that point produced modest additional benefit, reaching 74.3% effectiveness over the following two years. The most recent long-term efficacy data available for this vaccine.

Wolbachia and vector control

• Wolbachia Malaysia project — Institute for Medical Research FIXED — domain corrected; releases now run in the Klang Valley and Penang
• First economic review of Wolbachia programmes NEW — June 2026; the Malaysian effectiveness estimate here is 40.3%, not the higher figures usually quoted
• Auditor-General: no evidence fogging works NEW
• iDengue — hotspot mapping FIXED — domain moved from the old Remote Sensing Agency address; daily case and hotspot data by locality
• American Mosquito Control Association
• Society for Vector Ecology FIXED
• MaHTAS — Integrated Vector Management for Aedes Control FIXED — MOH/P/PAK/425.19(RR)-e, 2019. The original moh.gov.my link no longer resolves; MaHTAS appears to have moved its web presence to a separate subdomain, mymahtas.moh.gov.my, and the report was not found there directly. This ResearchGate copy carries the same title and reference details. Six years old, so treat the specific figures as historical rather than current — dengue illness cost estimated at RM116 million by May 2019 and RM348 million by December that year — but the WHO five-element integrated vector management framework it sets out has not materially changed, and it comes from the same Ministry body that assesses the vaccine's cost-effectiveness question elsewhere on this page.

International agencies

• CDC — Dengue FIXED
• CDC — About Dengue, fact sheet and Q&A FIXED
• CDC — current case definition FIXED
• CDC — clinical testing guidance FIXED
• CDC — epidemiology and statistics FIXED
• CDC — areas with risk / travel notices FIXED
• CDC — isolation precautions guideline FIXED
• CDC — Emerging Infectious Diseases journal FIXED
• CDC — MMWR
• WHO — Dengue and severe dengue FIXED
• WHO — fact sheet FIXED
• WHO — Dengue Case Management for Primary Health Care and Home-Based Care NEW — October 2025; supersedes the 2011–2012 SEARO handbook and guideline this page used to cite.
• WHO — Guidelines for clinical management of arboviral diseases NEW — July 2025. Integrated clinical guidance covering dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever — relevant here because all four can present similarly, particularly early, and several circulate simultaneously in this region. 125 pages; also available on the MAGICapp platform.
• WHO — Dengue: global situation, surveillance and progress, 2024 annual overview NEW — Weekly Epidemiological Record No. 52, 2025. The primary source for the 2024 global record: 14.4 million cases and 11,201 deaths reported across all six WHO regions, with the Americas accounting for more than 90% of the total. Malaysia and Indonesia among the South-East Asia and Western Pacific countries that collectively contributed more than one million cases.
• WHO SEARO — Dengue, South-East Asia Region FIXED
• WHO global dengue surveillance dashboard FIXED — replaces the discontinued DengueNet tool
• PAHO — Pan American Health Organization FIXED
• ECDC — Dengue surveillance and disease data NEW — European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Publishes a monthly worldwide overview and a weekly EU/EEA seasonal update; tracked dengue in 78 countries in the first quarter of 2026. The clearest single source for the global picture outside WHO, and includes travel-associated case data of direct relevance to anyone coming to or from Malaysia.

Regional and Malaysian sources

• The Star — new risks from DENV-3 NEW — June 2026, with Professor Zamberi Sekawi and Professor Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh
• New Straits Times — chronic illness raises dengue risk NEW
• Free Malaysia Today — Health Ministry warning, August 2026 NEW
• Systematic review: drivers of rising dengue cases in Malaysia NEW — April 2026
• ADVA — Dengue Dashboard FIXED — Asia Dengue Voice and Action's regional dashboard, archived back to 2023 and updated roughly monthly, currently through Week 27, 2026. Linked here as the live index rather than a single dated PDF, so it always points to the latest situation report.
• UniteDengue — Asia-Pacific regional situation update NEW — Country-by-country table for the Asia-Pacific region, drawing on WHO, national health ministries and regional media. Updated monthly; includes Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and others. A useful complement to the ADVA dashboard for a quick cross-regional comparison.
• Singapore MOH — published Dengvaxia decision reasoning NEW
• Singapore NEA — dengue and Zika FIXED

My own writing on dengue

• The Vaccine We Have … For Some NEW — Kerbside Consult 3/2026. A dengue vaccine is registered here and being sold privately. What the government's cost-benefit analysis actually assumes, why a registry that could have answered that question was quietly closed in February 2026, and why the population most likely to die of dengue is the one the trial evidence says least about.
• Don't Wait for the Fever to Break NEW — Kerbside Consult 4/2026. The practical version, for anyone who is not a clinician: mosquito control that works, the warning signs, when to go to hospital, and what to avoid at home. One screen long, and printable.

General reference

• The Big Picture Book of Viruses — Flaviviridae — still online, unchanged, more than two decades on.
• Department of Medical Entomology, Sydney — Dengue fact sheet
• EXTOXNET — Pesticide Information Profiles — for anyone looking into what is actually in a mosquito fogging product.
• National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) FIXED — search MEDLINE via NLM PubMed. Related articles for any result are shown alongside it automatically on the current site. Search PubMed for “dengue”.
• Dengue fever — Wikipedia
• Supercourse: Epidemiology, the Internet and Global Health FIXED — moved from a personal University of Pittsburgh directory to the university's current hosting platform
• ProMED-mail FIXED — old direct search-tool link retired; homepage still active
• Break Dengue
• Dengue Vaccine Initiative FIXED — domain corrected to the plural form

Content current as at 28 August 2026. Links last checked 28 August 2026. Updated 9 September 2026.

Suggestions and corrections are welcome by email. Links marked VERIFY could not be confirmed in this revision and should be tested before you rely on them.