Dengue in Davao up 300%

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – A total of 3,096 dengue cases have been recorded here from January to September this year, an increase of more than 300% from last year’s data.

In 2011, the local health office documented a total of 896 cases during the same period, according to Melody Pabante, pest control officer of the Davao City’s health office.

Pabante added that the highest number of incidents this year was recorded during the month of August: 1,069 cases. A total of 42 dengue victims from the city have died since January.

Clemarie Secuya, a 3rd year Computer Science student in Ateneo de Davao University, suffered from dengue days after school opened in June this year. “I thought it was just an ordinary case of fever due to the weather that time. I tried taking medicines but my temperature kept on rising,” Secuya recalled.

She added that after 3 days of high fever, her mother brought her to the hospital.

“When I had my blood checked, we discovered that my platelets were already very low because of dengue,” Secuya narrated. “We tried every treatment available including herbal medicine like tawa-tawa and even durian, which is believed to be an effective treatment,” said Secuya. Fortunately, the combination of traditional and alternative medicine was effective, she said.

The city health office said the local government is trying its best to regularly remind residents to clean their surroundings to keep dengue mosquitoes away.

Aside from information campaign, the local government also conducts fogging in different villages in the city. But fogging is a mere stop-gap measure, Pabante added.

She said that the health office has also been distributing Olyset-treated curtains and ovicidal larvicidal (OL) traps to address the problem.

In partnership with the Department of Education, Pabante said that the local government was successful in setting up OL traps and Olyset curtains in all public schools in the city.

“The increase is really alarming. We are hoping that the people would act on this. The efforts of the residents in removing the breeding ground of mosquitoes is the best solution,” Pabante said. – Rappler.com