TACLOBAN CITY- Due to rising number of dengue cases, the city government of Baybay City is now under a state of health emergency, hastening the procurement of needed medicines and a fogging machine.
Dr. Norberto Oja, city health officer, said that as of Thursday (July 19), there were 193 confirmed dengue cases in Baybay covering from the start of the year.
Last year, there were more than 200 dengue fever cases in Baybay with no death recorded.
But for this year, the mosquito-causing ailment has already killed one child each from the villages of Hipusngo, Zones 5 and 6.
Oja said that dengue fever cases were monitored to have detected in almost all of the city’s 92 barangays with the villages of Hipusngo, Guadalupe, San Isidro, and Zone 5 having the highest number of cases.
“We are addressing the problem with the help from the regional office of the Department of Health (DOH) as well as from the provincial health office,” Oja, in a phone interview, said.
According to Oja, Mayor Carmen Cari, upon the recommendation of the City Health Office, declared a state of health emergency in the city on July 10.
The declaration would mean that the city government could now fast track in the procurement of needed medicines and equipment like a fogging machine to address the rising number of dengue fever cases.
Oja, however, could not say how much the city government would allocate for this purpose.
The city government is to buy a fogging machine as of its two current fogging machines, one has bogged down. A fogging machine cost around P50,000, the health officer said.
It was learned from Oja, that they are now conducting massive ‘search and destroy’ operations on breeding places of dengue-causing mosquitos as well as fogging operations.
Based on the monitoring of dengue fever cases in the region by the DOH-8, as of this week, 16 people have died and about 1,179 others were afflicted due to dengue fever.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)
