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Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Market cleanup eyed to stop blood illness spread
By Rimaliza Opiņa and Jane Cadalig
BAGUIO CITY -- Local officials are thinking of closing the whole city market anytime this week for a scheduled massive clean-up starting at 7 p.m. as a way of stopping the spread of the deadly meningococcemia.
Acting City Administrator Benedicto Alhambra nevertheless said the scheme was a "big operation" that would mean a temporary stop to simple basic services like the sale of food.
He also said that if the city pushed through with this plan, vendors in the public market should also be relocated in various satellite markets all over the city.
The City Environment and Parks Management Office has been asked to study the feasibility of closing the market and its impact on residents.
Health officials have considered the public market as a focal point of the illness's spread, saying all those who have had contracted meningococcemia had at one time or the other been to the area.
Some 16,000 market vendors and jeepney drivers in Baguio City, whose staging areas are within market premises, had been given antibiotics as an aggressive measure to prevent a resurgence of the illness.
Meningococcemia, an acute infection of the bloodstream, is caused by Neisseria meningitides, which frequently lives in a person's upper respiratory tract, and is transmitted from person-to-person through respiratory droplets.
An engineer believed to have contracted the illness died on January 1 and became the first recorded fatality for this year in the city.
Alhambra added they will be using disinfectants to ensure the cleanliness of the market.
Aside from cleaning the market, officials were also thinking of strictly enforcing various local ordinances on cleanliness like anti-spitting, anti-littering, zoning, anti-vagrancy and on curfew, illegal vending, and anti-smoking.
The City will also demolish illegal stalls as well as relocate jeepney staging areas to decongest the city market.
Health officials have recorded 10 suspected meningococcemia cases admitted to the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center for the first four days of the year, including two deaths -- one last Sunday and another on Tuesday.
Health personnel also earlier intensified the administration of antibiotics Rifampicin and Ciproflaxin to residents of 21 of Baguio's 128 barangays.
(January 5, 2005 issue)
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