The World Health Organization said in a statement o­n Thursday that cases of dengue fever in military-ruled Burma and two other Southeast Asian countries are on the rise and that immediate steps were necessary to stop the spread of the mosquito-borne virus.

The statement by the UN health body singled out Indonesia, Burma and Thailand among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as countries facing an unprecedented increase in cases of dengue fever this year.

Burma has seen a 29-percent rise in the number of reported cases compared to 2005, while the number in Thailand is up 17 percent.

However, Indonesia has seen the greatest increase, with more than twice the number of cases compared to 2005.

“Vector control, such as the control of mosquito breeding in domestic and peri-domestic areas, is imperative for prevention of dengue,” Dr Jai P. Narain, the WHO’s director of Communicable Diseases for the Southeast Asia Regional Office, said in the statement. “This requires the full participation and mobilization of the community at the individual and household level.”

According to Burma’s Ministry of Health, dengue fever has killed about 100 children in Burma over the past seven months. In July alone, 32 children-most of them under age 5-died from the virus, with 3,000 cases of dengue reported, the health ministry’s deputy director, Kyaw Nyunt Sein, said in a recent news report.

“Dengue is a man-made problem related to human behavior,” said Dr Samlee Plianbangchang, the WHO’s Southeast Asian regional director. He added that the spread of the disease is affected by globalization, rapid unplanned and unregulated urban development, poor water storage and unsatisfactory sanitary conditions. These factors provide an increase in the breeding habitats of the mosquito.

Last year a total of 130 children died from dengue fever out of a total of about 11,000 reported cases in Burma, according to the country’s health ministry.