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Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim on Friday ordered city health officials to
intensify preventive measures, and boost the information and
educational campaigns against dengue in the city’s barangays.
Lim alerted the Manila Health Department (MHD)
about the unpredictable changes in climate which could result in
increased dengue cases.
He asked the health officials to check the
occurrence and spread of the disease, in close coordination with
Manila barangay officials.
According to the MHD, out of the 702 reported
suspected dengue cases in the city from January 1 to April 10, 2008,
611 cases have been properly treated.
City officials also said that unlike other
dengue occurrences in the National Capital Region, there had been no
observed “clustering” of dengue cases in Manila. Clustering,
they explained, means two or more dengue cases occurring in a span
of four weeks in a certain community.
The MHD urged the public to clean their
communities as it emphasized that “environmental sanitation is
still the number one solution in preventing the spread of dengue.”
“We are encouraging the city’s residents to
practice the so-called 4-S, or the searching and destroying of all
possible areas where mosquitoes lay their eggs, practicing
self-protection, seeking immediate treatment, and saying no to
indiscriminate fogging,” Dr. Ed Serrano, head of the Preventable
Diseases section of the MHD, said.
Serrano also said that they are currently
conducting health education campaigns in barangays and schools in
the city to help prevent or immediately diagnose cases of dengue.
The Department of Health recently warned the
public on the expected increase in the cases of certain
climate-sensitive diseases such as dengue, malaria, typhoid fever
and several cardio-respiratory diseases, as an increase in the
global surface temperature has been observed.
In 1998, the Health department said dengue fever
cases were at their highest, reaching more than 35,000 cases. The
department associates 1998’s dengue outbreak with the El Niño
phenomenon that occurred the same year.
The Health department said another possible
dengue outbreak may happen this year as a notable rise in the global
temperature has been recorded.
-- Rommel C. Lontayao with Justine M. Manuel
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