Saturday, December 29, 2007 Dengue team runs out of supplies
THE Cebu City Anti-Dengue Task Force appealed to the public and the private sector to help address the dengue fever problem in Barangays Lahug and Labangon by donating used oil.
Alvin Santillana of the Cebu City Disaster Coordinating Council (CCDCC) said that City Hall ran out of used oil, keeping them from pouring more in the two lagoons that are believed to be breeding sites of dengue-carrying mosquitoes.
Dengue fever has so far claimed 50 lives in Cebu City alone since Jan. 1, and caused the confinement of at least 1,991 residents of the city.
As of yesterday, the task force was still looking for possible suppliers and sources of used oil and asked the Cebu Contractors’ Association for some supply.
Without used oil, they can only continue to drain the lagoon in Barangay Labangon, which has the highest number of dengue cases among the 80 barangays in the city.
Only six inches of water is drained everyday during a 12-hour clearing operation, Santillana said, and it will take up to two more weeks to fully drain the water from the lagoon.
A lagoon near the Holy Family Retreat House in Barangay Lahug where mosquitoes also breed is waiting to be drained but the task force is still waiting for two pumps from the Department of Public Services (DPS) to be available before they can do so.
“We will do in Lahug what we did in Labangon. We will get volunteers to help clear the area, we will drain the water then pour used oil. But City Hall already ran out of oil. That is why we asked from the private sector. Mangayo na lang tag used oil, mao na ang paagi na among nakita,” Santillana told Sun.Star Cebu.
The Cebu City Health Department (CHD) is still collating the records on the number of dengue cases per barangay but as of last count, Assistant City Epidemiologist Durinda Macasocol said Labangon still has the highest number of cases, followed by Lahug.
The lagoons in the two barangays were partly blamed for it.
Five residents of Labangon already died of dengue fever, while Lahug had one death out of the 95 cases reported there.
Santillana said that with limited resources and manpower, they can only drain up to six inches of water from the Labangon lagoon per day using two water pumps from DPS, and one unit each from the Bureau of Fire Protection and the owner of the property.
The 1.4-hectare lagoon is within the property of the Gaisanos, between the campuses of the Cebu Institute of Technology and the Salazar Institute of Technology. (LCR)
