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By Miguel Antonio de Guzman, Researcher
BORONGAN, Samar: A second outbreak of typhoid
has left about 150 people hospitalized, health officials said
Tuesday.
The latest typhoid outbreak occurred on the
island of Zumarraga, said Aura Corpuz, medical specialist with the
National Epidemiology Centre in Manila.
Epidemiologists suspect the outbreak was caused
by the lack of sanitation facilities and heavy rains that fell on
the area in recent weeks that washed sewerage into the open wells
residents use for drinking, said Corpuz.
Corpuz, however, assured the latest outbreak had
not yet reached a dangerous level and no fatalities were reported.
Dr. Eric Tayag, head of the National
Epidemiology Center (NEC), said local health workers are now
teaching the residents in Alegria village in Zumarraga town on
disinfections, reported the Philippine News Agency.
The health official noted that the outbreak
stemmed from two months of rains, with the surface runoff
contaminating the local deep wells from which the residents draw
drinking water. He added that a medical team from the Department of
Health regional office is on standby for dispatch to the area
affected by the outbreak should there be a need to augment the
services of the local health office.
Earlier this month, there was an outbreak of
typhoid fever that reached epidemic proportions in Calamba City,
Laguna that left 1,200 people hospitalized.
At the overcrowded Jose Rizal Medical District
Hospital in the city, sick children in soiled nappies and on
intravenous drips spilled into hallways from overcrowded wards, many
in makeshift cots.
It took almost two weeks for health officials to
put the typhoid outbreak soon as officials identified that it came
from contaminated water distributed to homes by the city’s water
district.
Areas close to the city were also put on a tight
watch, and water sources were analyzed daily. The Calamba City
government also established a command center to provide quick
reaction to distress signals from communities.
Tayag said the health department verified the
data provided by the Calamba Health Office, while urging the Calamba
City government to distribute chlorinated water to the residents to
prevent further outbreak.
The epidemiologist had also advised the
residents to boil their drinking water for at least two to three
minutes and use chlorinated water in cooking food.
Meanwhile, a Chinese-Filipino medical team
conducted a medical mission in Calamba City in Laguna province on
Tuesday to treat residents downed by typhoid fever. James Dy, head
of the Filipino-Chinese Charitable Association that headed the
mission, said most of those downed by typhoid were children.
“We’ll bring the serious cases to Manila,”
he said, referring to his foundation’s Chinese General Hospital.
Typhoid is a communicable disease characterized
by fever, diarrhea, prostration, apathy, headache, eruption of rose
spots, leukopenia, an inflammation of the intestinal mucosa and
caused by the salmonella typhi bacteria that can be either
transmitted through food and water intake.
-- With AFP
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