DAVAO CITY — The City Health Office (CHO) has expressed alarm at the increase of dengue cases here despite its regular community visits and reminders to discard water from unused containers.
“Since January, we already informed the community to clean their areas, we urge them to do community participation in preventing the increase dengue cases in the city,” Elizabeth Banzon of the tropical disease control of CHO said.
Banzon said that as of the first quarter, there are already 1,295 dengue cases in the city compared to 1,191 dengue cases over the same period last year.
“The reason why dengue cases increases is because there is also an increase of breeding containers in the community around us” she said.
The CHO reported that the top ten districts with the highest number of dengue cases include Buhangin, Talomo South, Talomo North, Toril, Tugbok, Agdao, Calinan, Bunawan and Sasa.
Banzon said that there are already 11 deaths in January-March period compared with only eight for the entire year last year.
She added that most victims are aged six years old and older.
CHO said that it has observed that most victims have clean houses “but do have a unclean neighborhood”.
“That is why, if you have fever, do referral to the doctor, don’t just take it for granted,” she said.
Brigada Eskwela activities
Banzon also said that they conducted inspections in schools in the ongoing Brigada Eskwela to spot potential breeding sources of mosquitoes and make fogging operations.
Before the fogging activity,she said they have to eliminate breeding sources”since it will be useless because the mosquito eggs will stillhatch into adult mosquitoes”.
The CHO has also prepared seminars for public school teachers on the prevention of dengue.
“The mayor mandated us to do fogging operations in all public schools in the city,” she said. (davaotoday.com)
