DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Twelve barangays in the city were identified by the City Health Office (CHO) as “dengue hotspots” with most of the 937 dengue cases found in this areas in the first half of this year.
The City Health’s Tropical Disease Prevention and Control Division identified these barangays as Buhangin Proper, Cabantian, Matina Crossing, Talomo Proper, Toril, Calinan, Wilfredo Aquino and Lapu-Lapu in Agdao, Catalunan Grande, Barangay 19-B, Barangay 76-A and Marilog.
Melodina Babante, CHO pest control worker, said that some of these communities remained to have high cases of dengue despite relentless clean up drive by the local government units.
Babante said these figures do not indicate that there is an outbreak of dengue cases in the city. Of the 937 cases, there were three reported cases of death.
“Currently, we still haven’t reached to an outbreak. The number of dengue cases in the city is still manageable but we still need to do actions to totally control this disease,” explained Babante.
CHO reported that the mosquito-borne disease was most prevalent in January with a total of 298 cases, but cases started to drop in February (196 cases), March (123 cases), April (118 cases), May (105 cases), and June (97 cases).
The number of cases in the first half of this year at 937 is higher compared to only 665 cases in the same period 2018.
The CHO said they are forming an inter-agency task force with the Department of Health and other local government agencies to craft a plan to better address this persistent problem in some barangays. (davaotoday.com)
