MikeLigalig.com

By Rey Anthony Chiu
Philippine Information Agency

“Every fever case should be seen with caution now that dengue hemorrhagic fever is again on the up-trend,” health authorities here in Bohol warn.

Voicing out the joint call for more awareness on the dangers of dengue, health authorities from the Department of Health, Provincial Health Office and the City Health Office issue the alarm just as Bohol has seen resurgence in cases from January to June this year.

Provincial Health Office (PHO) Statistician Merlin Nemenzo reported over at the weekly Kapihan sa PIA that the office has recorded 206 cases here from January to June 19 this year.

“This is alarming,” she said, “as whole year of 2006, Bohol dengue cases only totaled 231, or just 25 cases short, and we are still in June.”

“Majority of the dengue cases are reported from Loboc, Dauis and Jagna,” Provincial Dengue Coordinator Polizena Rances said.

Taking the traditional herbal “tawa-tawa concoction” as an anti-dengue preparation, Provincial Health Team Leader Dr. Portia Reyes said, there has never been any scientific proof that such could help abate the fever, much more cure it.

“The fever may subside”, Dr. Reyes said, but she stressed that “it may not be a condition to be lax as in dengue cases, the fever tends to lie low when the patient has weakened. This is a telltale sign of internal bleeding, and the case may have gone serious.” 

Confronted with the reality of costs in treating the disease, authorities here said prevention is still the best way against the onslaught of the disease, which the DOH has classified as mutating into a hyper-endemic, meaning it may be already impossible to reduce the number of cases to its previous levels.

Dengue, a fatal fever that is caused by daylight biting mosquitoes called aedes egypti has accordingly come to another furious biting year due to global changes in temperature. DOH national epidemiology center director Dr. Eric Tayag has reportedly said the warmer temperatures now make the mosquitoes hungrier for blood, causing more eggs and more carriers.

Moreover, this year, DOH through health secretary Francisco Duque noted about four strains of the virus, a condition the country share with other Asian regions where dengue infection has since doubled.   

At this alarm, local health authorities call for more preventive measures and community support and strictly observe the national anti-dengue campaign.

For this, Dr. Reyes reiterated that seeking and destroying mosquito-breeding places, making up measures for personal self-protection, seeking immediate medical attention and saying no to indiscriminate fogging is the government’s tips.


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