Since the late phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, dengue fever has become a serious public health issue in the Philippines and other Asian counties. This is also thought to be strongly influenced by global warming, with outbreaks also occurring on the Pacific small islands such as Guam. Prof. Dr. Jun Kobayashi, Graduate School of Health Sciences, the University of the Ryukyus and the University of the Philippines have been conducting “Research on the risk assessment of dengue fever outbreak during the COVID-19 epidemic by citizen science and spatio-temporal analysis” funded by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on International Cooperative Research Acceleration from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan since FY2020. This is an advanced research project to find hotspots of dengue outbreak by geographical information system using remote sensing technology. At the same time, we have also been promoting research on dengue fever control based on school health as one of the effective countermeasures against dengue fever. As part of this effort, a grand ceremony was held on June 18, 2024 at the Department of Education in San Fernando City, Pampanga Province, Philippines, to present the teachers’ manuals and textbook for school children developed by the project for use in elementary schools. The manuals were published under the copyright of the University of the Philippines with the approval of the Philippine Department of Education and the Tropical Medicine and Public Health Network of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO).

In Asia, many school health-based dengue fever control studies have been reported in countries such as Malaysia, but to be formally incorporated into school education, it is necessary to develop teaching materials approved by the Ministry of Education. In the Philippines, a dengue vaccine trial conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic caused social unrest. After the pandemic, it has been predicted that the general population will not properly recognize the difference between COVID-19 infections and dengue fever, as they are febrile diseases with similar symptoms. In this situation, teachers and school children are important health messengers to convey appropriate health information to the general population. We hope that the manual published in this issue will be used as a reference not only in the Philippines but also in other countries in Southeast Asia.

Ceremony for the awarding of the manual at the San Fernando City Department of Education, Phillpine