Dengue Fever

The rainy season in Angola brings with it the floods, landslides and even worse the threat of outbreak of infectious diseases.
Here in Luanda there are so many people living outside and they keep their water in buckets.  The buckets, puddles and all the garbage cans or tires around holds water for some time. That are an excellent breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
More mosquitoes means more diseases!  And not only malaria!
Yesterday we heard about the outbreak of dengue fever here in Luanda.
After the year spent in Angola I've became quite comfortable with living in a high risk malaria country. At least when I think back at my fears during the first months here I came to terms with it.
We are still very cautious and compared to some other expats sometimes I even think we are maybe too cautious. But how much prevention in this case is too much?

Anyway,  there are already more than 20 people infected with the dengue virus in Angola!

Unlike the malaria mosquito the dengue mosquito prefers to bite people during the day time, so beware!

It's interesting to know that dengue mosquitoes only live and breed in urban environments, in man-made areas. They only need a little bit of water to lay their eggs. They also don't like to fly far only some 50-200 meters. 

Well, I'm off to check our backyard for any pooled water!