The government suspects mosquitoes living in a few separate locations in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park may have been responsible for the recent mysterious dengue fever outbreak, NHK reported Tuesday.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, after looking into the activities of the people contracting the tropical disease, has found that some of them recently visited locations in the park that were more than 100 meters apart. As individual mosquitoes' geographical range is believed to be limited to within a 100-meter radius, the ministry suspects these people may have been bitten by the virus-carrying insects in separate habitats inside the park, according to NHK.
In the first outbreak in some 70 years that started last week, 19 people in six separate prefectures, including Tokyo and Kanagawa, were newly cofirmed Monday to have contracted the disease, bringing the number to 22. As all were found to have visited Yoyogi Park or its vicinity in August, authorities suspect they contracted the disease from mosquito bites during their visits at these locations.