South China's Guangdong Province reported 791 dengue fever cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number to a staggering 8,273, said local authorities on Thursday.
Guangzhou, Guangdong's capital, saw 6,986, or nearly 85 percent of the cases, with the rest scattered across 17 cities. According to the provincial health and family planning commission, the number of cases this year is more than 13 times of that last year.
Three people died from the disease, two of whom were in Guangzhou while the other in the adjacent Foshan city, Xinhua reported.
The outbreak of Dengue fever this year is believed to be the worst in 20 years. 'The outbreak is 40 days earlier this year than usual,' said He Jianfeng, head of the Institute of Epidemic Disease Control and Research under Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dengue fever, a viral infection transmitted by mosquitoes, mostly hits tropical and sub-tropical regions. The symptoms include high fever, nausea, rashes, backache and headache. The hemorrhagic variant, which causes severe internal bleeding as blood vessels collapse, is often fatal.