Saturday, October 13, 2007 Roperos: Dengue menace By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
THE number of dengue victims in the province seems to be this time.
In the past years, dengue victims were more from the city, in heavily congested areas where drainage is practically absent.
Now, dengue incidents are reported even in towns where stagnant water in yards and fields disappear in a day because they are exposed to the sun.
There is soundness in the way Cebu City Hall has reacted to the current rise in the number of dengue victims in the city. When it comes to risks from diseases that science and technology cannot as yet effectively control, there is no substitute for anticipatory precaution.
City Hall countered past dengue resurgence with fogging in areas suspected of being the breeding grounds of the dengue carrier mosquito that has stripes like a tiger.
It is good that City Hall has undertaken ways to prevent an outbreak. One could not guess how many lives will be saved in the determined way it is trying to contain the menace. There is, after all, no substitute for precaution.
While the cause and the carrier of the disease is known, there is still no effective way to eliminate the mosquito except by fogging suspected breeding areas. And fogging also has its health hazards.
It is painful to realize that one could lose a child through simple fever. Parents who do not know the symptoms of dengue usually take it as ordinary fever that goes with colds or flu. That is how I lost my youngest son in the late sixties.
We did not have a house in the city then, as I just returned to Cebu after working with the Manila Times after college. My wife, Lolit and I decided to stay in an aunt’s house in Lahug, at the back of UP rather than return to Balamban in the meantime.
But that could have been our mistake, because it was in that place where our fifth and youngest child contacted dengue at seven months old. When we brought him to the hospital, a pediatrician injected him with a fever downer. By dawn, he died.
A year later, when my daughter contacted dengue, I had learned my lesson. I brought her immediately to a pediatrician, who turned out to be a friend since high school. Dr. Jovito Lee diagnosed her as suffering from dengue fever.
Treated promptly, she was saved, but I feel, to this day, that dengue is an ailment that we could not joke about, and should never take lightly at all.
