By: Estanislao Albano Jr. TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Amidst the deadlier attack
of dengue this year and the observation that the occurrence of the
illness is no longer confined to the rainy months, the City Health
Office here is urging the adoption of more stringent measures against
the killer disease.
Although the incidence during the same period last year was 917
as compared to this year’s 433, so far, four dengue deaths have been
recorded since January as against the one death last year.
City Health Officer Henrietta Bagayao has called on barangay
governments, schools and the general public to make the cleaning of the
environment an all- year-round activity because since last year, cases
have already been recorded in January.
“Unlike before when the disease only occurred during the rainy months starting from May to August, now the phenomenon is all-year-round. Let us change our mindset that we only move to clean our surroundings when the rains come. Environmental sanitation should be all-year-round,” Bagayao said.
She cited the need for local schools to take the cleaning of their surroundings a priority because majority of the cases this year are school children. She added that personnel of her office who made rounds of schools have found that many schools have dirty surroundings.
She reiterated that the most effective measure against the disease is still to deprive the aedes aegypti mosquito of breeding places by preventing all receptables such as empty cans and even large leaves from collecting water.
To compel the barangay governments to cooperate in the year-round drive against the illness, Bagayao also suggested that the absence of dengue cases in the barangays be included as a criterion in inter-barangay achievement contests.
Regarding the clamor of some barangays for the declaration of an outbreak so that a more vigorous action could be taken against the illness as they could then access their calamity funds, Bagayao said that the dengue incidence in the city has not yet reached epidemic level, only alert threshold.
She explained that under the guidelines of the Department of Health, for an outbreak to be declared, the data in the last five years is analyzed even as she cited that when her office declared an outbreak in 2009, it was because from double-digit figures in the two previous years, the cases have skyrocketed to 577.
Meanwhile, Provincial Epidemiologist and Surveillance Unit Officer Jose Pardito Jr. said that from January 1 to August 20 the PESU has recorded 578 cases and has already received reports of four deaths due to dengue as compared to the one death reported last year.
Pardito said that most of the death cases were observed to be due to late diagnosis and medical attention, he said relating that once bleeding occurs there is a very low chance that a patient would survive.
Considering that dengue being an endemic disease in the province with cases being reported year-round, Pardito also said that the public should work together to prevent the continuous breeding of dengue-carrying mosquitoes.
