During the research on Dengue in Yemen, we found that the risk for disease is year-round and is spread through mosquitos. Dengue fever is a viral infection from infected mosquito bites that causes fever, chills, muscle aches, and death with severe cases. There are many factors that promote this disease in the country. We found that mosquitos, improper storage of water, poor storm drainage, misdiagnosis, and lack of preventative measures are we believe are the top five problems of this dengue outbreak.

Mosquitoes thrive in areas with standing water, including puddles, water tanks, containers and old tires. The amount of water from rainfall is increasing the chances of developing a breeding site for these mosquitos since most outbreak cases. “At present, the main method to control or prevent the transmission of dengue virus is to combat vector mosquitoes through: preventing mosquitoes from accessing egg-laying habitats by environmental management and modification, covering, emptying and cleaning of domestic water storage containers on a weekly basis, and applying appropriate insecticides to water storage outdoor containers.” (“Dengue and sever dengue”, 2018) “Community participation tends to be successful in countries having stable and strong political systems. Community based programs involving local authorities to participate in eliminating breeding places of dengue mosquitoes are the only cost effective and sustainable way of ensuring control in any dengue-affected country and countries deficient in resources.” (Zahir, Ullah, Shah & Mussawar, 2016)

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease that can oftentimes be mistaken for other illnesses such as malaria, this complicates the diagnosis of dengue fever. In many instances people do not show symptoms for dengue four to seven days after being infected. In order to diagnose dengue laboratory test are conducted. The main problem when it comes to diagnosing dengue fever is the misdiagnosis. It is often diagnosed and treated as malaria because the appropriate tests are not conducted patients are just assumed to have malaria. This ultimately has life-threatening consequences.

Because Dengue is a vector-borne disease, mosquitoes are a major issue for the people in Yemen who face this recurring outbreak year-round. For a person to be infected, one has to be bitten by a female mosquito. The mosquitoes are infected by drawing blood from those who are infected with the virus. I found that it usually takes a week for the mosquito to be able to transmit the virus while biting a healthy person, but with large amount of mosquitoes that window of time doesn’t mean much, when the other mosquitoes whose week has passed by are able to infect others. It can be seen that there is just a constant cycle of transmission, because once a person is infected with dengue, the mosquitoes then feed and then become infected and infect others when biting them, sometimes multiple people at a time. With the prevalence of standing water in Yemen, these insects are likely to follow because this provides homes for their eggs and the cycle continues.

The heavy rainfall in Yemen has create more areas of stagnant water. The land in Yemen is sandy and or eroded of vegetation because of constant flooding. There’s is also a lack of drainage because there are little tributaries. Also, Yemen was once fruitful from agricultural, but from neglect and the civil conflicts, the old fields are eroded play into poor drainage and still puddles of water.

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne virus affecting nearly all of Yemen’s population. Due to the lack of preventives methods, such as vaccines, and adequate water system, the virus can spread rapidly causing mortality rate to skyrocket. Dengue fever is caused by Aedes aegypti virus; therefore a very sophisticated treatment is needed. There is currently no precise treatment for dengue fever; however, early intervention can help, depending on how severe it is. According to the World Health Organization, vaccines for dengue fever is under development. It is going through phase II and phases III clinical trials. Though there is currently no cure for dengue, however, there are preventive methods that can be taken to prevent and reduce the mode transmission. One way mosquitoes replicate is through water and unsanitary environment.  To prevent mosquitoes from breeding dispose of garbage and dirty water in a proper way and turn containers upside down. Storing drinking water in the sheltered area and make sure it is covered.

Each member of our group was assigned one of the five problems to research and then bring information to class to discuss each problem. After discussion, we agreed on the factors we think were most important compare to each problem and created a decision matrix. We based each problem on mortality rate, most population affected, most abundant, and most persistent throughout the year. After the matrix, we decided our problem to solve would be improper storage of water.