Dengue in Baguio rising; here’s why

BAGUIO CITY — This city’s Anti-Dengue Task Force cited the failure to implement preventive measures by households like ensuring that mosquitoes do not breed and individuals’ failure to seek early consultation as contributing to the high cases of dengue and the rising deaths from the disease.

City Epidemiology Surveillance Unit Chief Dr. Donnabel Tubera-Panes said that although the number of cases decreased starting the middle of May, they remained record-breaking.

The city listed a total of 5,505 case as of 22 August, the highest in the city’s history, as against last year’s 645, for a 753-percent increase. There were 12 deaths reported this year from seven last year.

According to the Baguio City Health Services office (CHSO), most of the fatalities were in the severe stage when they sought consultation while the adult victims had comorbidities.

The Sanitation Division of the CHSO which is working with the community in implementing the anti-dengue measures reported a total of 241 households found violating the provisions of the city’s anti-dengue ordinance. The division coordinated with the barangays.

War vs dengue

The ordinance prohibits the storing of water in containers that are not tightly covered, the storing of water-filled vases and using ornamental plants with pot saucers, keeping discarded tires, discharging wastewater or sewage onto streets, roads, alleys and pathways, and conducting chemical control methods without clearance from the CHSO and the Department of Health.

The CHSO has sustained the dengue preventive measures. Aside from strengthening case surveillance, the CHSO is implementing the 5S anti-dengue public awareness campaign and cleanup drive through the “Denguerra — War against Dengue” program, an intensified campaign to mobilize barangays to conduct massive and simultaneous search and destroy operations every Thursday to weed out mosquito breeding sites as well as other interventions to stop the reproduction of dengue-carrying mosquitoes and the use of larvicides in critical barangays.

The city government also launched an online system of reporting cases to boost surveillance and capture all cases as part of the CHSO’s newly developed monitoring system which, according to Panes, integrates data gathering from health laboratories and citizen self-reporting.