MindanaoToday.com | 35 dengue cases get detected every day in Normin
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines – The health agency’s Northern Mindanao office last week issued a public alert against mosquito-borne dengue disease as it confirmed 898 infections and recorded three deaths within the first four weeks this year.
Last year’s 17,303 total number of dengue cases in the region was a 49-percent increase over 2022’s 11,623. The epidemic threshold was surpassed 22 times out of the 54 epidemiological weeks while rest of the weekly surveillance reports hovered the region’s alert level.
To prevent an outbreak, Dr. Ellenietta Gamolo, who heads the Department of Health in Region 10, issued on Tuesday, February 6, an advisory calling for intensified anti-dengue campaign strategies, active surveillance and reporting, and community and school-based initiatives.
Gamolo said: “It is crucial to strengthen the 5S strategies for Dengue in response to the rising cases.” She was referring to search and destroy mosquito-breeding sites, self-protection measures, seek early consultation, support fogging and spraying of pyrethrins, and sustain hydration.
She suggested that ground-level anti-dengue campaigns such as the Barangay Dengue Brigades or the Aksyon Barangay Kontra Dengue (ABKD) Task Force and Department of Education’s Dengue School Project and Dengue Fastlanes should be revived, if these are not functional.
Local governments, she said, should revisit and improve their existing dengue preparedness strategies to prevent an epidemic from occurring, a situation when there is rapid spread of a disease to a large number of hosts in a given population within a short period of time.
Among the region’s provinces, Lanao del Norte posted the highest 148-percent increase in the number of dengue cases for January 1 to December 31 period in 2023 over 2022, or 3,610 cases against 1,458, as recorded by the DOH-10’s Research, Epidemiology Surveillance, and Disaster Response Unit (RESDRU).
Misamis Occidental had 2,479 dengue infections in 2023 which was 133-percent over the 1,065 cases in 2022. Cases of dengue also went up in Iligan City by 70 percent, Misamis Oriental by 33 percent, and Bukidnon by 21 percent.
In real number, Bukidnon registered the highest number of individuals who caught the dengue-causing viruses (DEN-1, DEN-1, DEN-3, and DEN-4) from Aedes mosquito species (aegypti and albopictus) in 2023 with 5,393. It had 4,074 dengue cases in 2022.
Two local governments in Northern Mindanao however logged in reductions of dengue cases in 2023 compared to those recorded in 2022: Camiguin cut down its dengue infections by 48 percent, from 325 to 169; and Cagayan de Oro trimmed its dengue cases by 13 percent, from 1,986 to 1,733. (MT)
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