A mosquito-borne and potentially fatal disease could take hold in Bermuda at any moment unless householders do more to rid their properties of all standing water at least once a week.

It has been a bad summer for the Island?s mosquito control team, who have found much of the good work of 2004 undone by residents becoming complacent about checking their properties for standing water where the dengue fever-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito can breed.

In some neighbourhoods every other house has been found to be unwittingly harbouring potential breeding grounds for the insects.

The news comes at a time when a world health expert has warned that the Caribbean region, including Bermuda, is in the same position that Southeast Asia was ten years ago.

This year there has been a huge increase in the number of cases of dengue fever across the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, with the rate of cases doubling during the past year in Singapore with up to 100 cases reported each week.

In the Philippines, 159 people died from the disease between January and August.

On average, five percent of people who contract dengue fever die, although this can be reduced to less than one percent with proper treatment. Most fatal cases are among children and young adults.

Bermuda has been home to the dengue fever mosquito since 1998 and last year there were a handful of imported cases of people suffering from the disease.

Unless residents do more to clear out standing water around their homes every weekend, it is feared it is only a matter of time before the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Bermuda become carriers of the fever.

?We?re having a bad summer. I don?t think people are being vigilant enough. We have found a lot of breeding areas,? said Environmental Health Officer David Kendell.

?Last summer we were congratulating people because they had cleaned up their properties and we were seeing that most of the mosquito breeding was on the verges between properties.

?But in the past month and a half, we have been checking and finding that in some neighbourhoods there are mosquitoes breeding on every other property.?

As the vector control supervisor, Mr. Kendell has a team of ten inspectors out in the field each day, but with around 16,000 properties on the Island, it is a tough task to track down all the mosquito breeding grounds.

That?s where residents can help out ? and help themselves ? by doing a weekly check around their homes.

According to Mr. Kendell the number one place where standing water is found around properties is in buckets. Other places include plastic sheeting and tarpaulins and in dishes beneath plant pots.

?Even in one quarter of an inch of water in a dish, you can lift up the plant pot and find between 20 and 50 mosquito eggs,? said Mr. Kendell.

?People have to be aware that any water accumulating on their property has to be emptied every five days; so that?s asking people to do a tour of their property every weekend.?

The dengue fever mosquito is identified by its black and yellow stripes and its tendency to bite around the ankles and feet in the evening hours. Unlike the common mosquito, it does not make a whining noise.

Referring to the rising numbers of cases reported across Southeast Asia, Mr. Kendell said: ?There have been two big outbreaks. In Singapore there have been 100 cases every day. Singapore has a reputation for being squeaky clean and yet they are being inundated with cases of dengue fever.

?We had a consultant from the World Trade Organisation describe the Caribbean area as being a mirror of how Southeast Asia was ten years ago. We need to get into the habit of cleaning our properties. When dengue fever arrives here it will start affecting large numbers of people.?

The disease is already present in Belize, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Mr. Kendell has been made aware of a small number of imported cases in Bermuda which were treated at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital last year. There has also been one reported case of imported malaria this year.

Workers coming from Southeast Asia may pick up the disease before they reach Bermuda and only show the symptoms two weeks later. There is a risk that if they are bitten by an Island mosquito it could then go on to spread the disease.

People arriving in Bermuda from areas where dengue fever exists should go to see a doctor immediately if they start to feel unwell and, if they are suffering from a mosquito-borne disease, they should stay indoors.

Anyone badly bitten by mosquitoes should contact Mr. Kendell?s department so that inspectors can carry out house-to-house checks to find where the insects are breeding.

Residents with fish ponds can ask the department for guppies which will eat mosquito larvae.