Environmental manipulation and health education in Aedes aegypti control in Thailand.

Aedes aegypti is generally considered to have been introduced and established in South-East Asia sometime before the year 1900. It is now widespread in coastal urban areas of South-East Asia. Important early work was done in Bangkok by Stanton in 1920 in a survey of A. aegypti in ports of the Far East. At that time, it was a problem of yellow-fever receptive areas, and the control work was done in ports and airports only. After the large outbreak of haemorrhagic fever in 1958, viruses in the dengue group and chikungunya were isolated from patients and from A. aegypti. It has been established that A. aegypti is the primary vector of dengue and chikungunya viruses in areas where haemorrhagic fever has been reported. Other than the control of the vector, A. aegypti, no adequate preventive or control measures are available to deal with the epidemic of haemorrhagic fever. To control epidemics, an intensive health education has been initiated, with emphasis on the following three points: