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Friday, January 21, 2005
2 more believed to have died from blood illness
By Ernie N. Olson Jr. and Rimaliza Opiña
BAGUIO CITY -- Two more deaths from a suspected blood infection were recorded by a Baguio hospital the past two days even as local health officials scrambled to allay public apprehension on the disease's possible resurgence.
Health authorities in Manila said they were also closely monitoring in Benguet and Mt. Province a possible outbreak of meningococcemia, an acute infection of the bloodstream caused by a mengingococcus now formally known as the bacteria Neisseria meningitides.
The meningococcus bacteria can cause meningitis or infection of the meningis, the fluid lining the brain; bacteria in the blood or mengingococcemia; pneumonia; and arthritis.
The latest deaths from the contagious blood infection were the four-year-old child of a nurse who had direct contact with a patient and a 31-year-old male patient.
The child died Monday while the male patient succumbed to the illness early Tuesday morning.
The Department of Health central office said the newest victim of the blood illness in Benguet is a 30-year-old who was rushed to the hospital two days ago after developing fever and hemorrhagic rashes, headache and vomiting last January 16.
Dr. Luningning Villa, DOH Infectious Diseases Unit chief, said laboratory examination confirmed the woman's illness was meningococcemia.
In keeping with health guidelines, the two new deaths from suspected meningococcemia in Baguio City were immediately buried.
At least 16 people were suspected to have died from the illness in the three months.
The local health department said only five of the 32 suspected cases in Baguio City were confirmed to be meningococcemia through laboratory findings as of Thursday.
Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center director Manuel Factora explained the 27 other suspected cases were only presumptively diagnosed based on their clinical presentation.
In Benguet, 13 suspected cases of meningococcemia were recorded from January 1 to 19 with four of such cases confirmed as meningococcemia and meningitis while in Mt. Province, there are about 12 suspected cases but not one confirmed case yet.
Health Secretary Dayrit said they are monitoring the situation in the whole Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR) because of the "traffic between Baguio and the nearby provinces."
He said in a press conference the Baguio Health Center late Thursday afternoon there was no more cause for alarm because "the primary focus of the meningococcemia upsurge which began in Baguio in October this year has been identified and contained."
Dayrit assured that at present, efforts are also underway to contain the spread of the disease in the 15 affected barangays of the city. He refused to identify the barangays.
"After a careful analysis of information from meningococcemia patients, investigators concluded that the primary focus of the upsurge of cases was in the general vicinity of the Baguio City market. An aggressive campaign of preventive antibiotic treatment for 4,000 vendors and jeepney drivers who were possible contacts of cases here was completed on December 23," Dayrit explained.
He added that the recent suspected seven cases in the last three days were traced to several barangays where "secondary foci of infection" have developed.
"One or two cases have arisen in each of these barangays but aggressive preventive antibiotic treatment of household and neighborhood contacts is ongoing," he assured city residents.
To ensure that all routes of spread are stopped, he said that the Baguio health department started on Thursday a second pass of preventive antibiotic treatment of vendors and jeepney drivers whose terminals are within the immediate vicinity of the market. "This is to prevent the persistence of the asymptomatic carriers who can spread the infection."
Dayrit also committed supplemental funds to the City Government for the cost of more preventive antibiotic treatment in the near future.
Many Baguio residents are deploring the seemingly unconcerned attitude of the City Government, which they claimed was more concerned with tourist arrivals than their own plight.
Dr. Jean-Marc Olive, World Health Organization representative to the Philippines, who was with Dayrit, Factora and City Health Officer Florence Reyes in Thursday's press briefing, added that meningococcemia can only be spread through continuous, prolonged or constant personal contact with infected patients.
"There is no reason to believe that you have to stay away from the marketplace to avoid being infected with the disease. This means that you cannot just contract the disease when you buy a couple of bananas in the market. You have to be in the affected area for a long period of time before even possibly getting into contact with an infected person," he assured.
On Wednesday, it was reported that the BGHMC not only continues to admit suspected meningococcemia patients, but also continues to record casualties.
On Sunday, another suspected patient was said to have died at the hospital. However, Reyes and Dr. Antonio Bautista, head of the Infectious Disease Cluster of the DOH-CAR and co-spokespersons of the City Health Response Team, declined to comment pending Dayrit's arrival.
City officials led by Baguio Rep. Mauricio Domogan and Mayor Braulio Yaranon also declined to answer queries regarding the disease, and referred all inquiries by the media to the city's "health experts".
Prior to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's press conference on Wednesday evening, city officials and health representatives held a closed-door meeting with her at The Mansion, reportedly to discuss the meningococcemia "scare" that continues to threaten residents and tourists, even after health experts declared it to be "under control". (With MSN)
(January 21, 2005 issue)
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