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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Suspected cholera downs more than 900
TAGOLOAN, Misamis Oriental -- The municipal health system in this town has been strained to the limits as more suspected cholera victims were reported Tuesday.
Grace Valdehueza, a nurse of the Department of Health (DOH)-Northern Mindanao, said more than 900 victims of suspected cholera were admitted at the Rural Health Unit in the town Tuesday, flooding the small facility with sick people.
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Last Monday, authorities put the number of people who got sick at more than 500.
"Gikan pagsugod nako trabaho sa 1975, karon pa ko kita ani kadaghan sa pasyente (Since I started working in 1975, it is just now that I have seen this number of patients)," Valdehueza said.
There was bedlam at the crowded yard at the Tagoloan Rural Health Unit on Tuesday as parents brought in children who are too dehydrated to move, as well as elderly people who are too sick that they have to be carried by relatives.
More than 50 patients were lying on cots, some on the tables of the nurses and doctors who have been working relentlessly to stop the outbreak.
Inside a one-storey cream-painted building, doctors have to tiptoe from one patient to another as patients occupy every spaces and nooks.
"Sagunson akong suka. Gidala dayon ko diri sa akong auntie (I was vomiting. My aunt immediately brought me here)," Christine Clemenea, 14, a resident of Barangay Casinglot in this town, said as he held on to a bottle of intravenous liquid attached to her right arm.
Five doctors from five towns and Del Monte Philippines came to help and started distributing bottles of mineral water treated with oral rehydration solution. Even private physicians in this town came and offered their help.
Dr. Ignacio Moreno, Misamis Oriental health officer, said the cases reported in eight barangays, namely: Poblacion, Sihayon, Casinglot, Sta Cruz, Bogoac, Ganghaan, Mohon, and Sugbongcogon, is on the rise.
Moreno said the hardest hit is Barangay Sihayon.
Two residents identified as Ronel Calabao, 18 years old and resident of Barangay Poblacion, and a certain Baliangio have already died.
Health authorities suspected the cases to be Vibrio cholerae bacteria or cholera because of the symptoms exhibited by the patients -- watery diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramps, high fever, rapid loss of body fluids, dehydration, and shock.
Moreno said it would take four or five more days for the results of the water samples they sent to Manila to be known.
He also said they are closely investigating the two main water sources for Tagoloan residents -- Tagoloan Water Works and the Mactan Rock -- as the source of the bacteria.
Moreno added that the town has experienced heavy rains last Thursday and Friday.
"Possible nga nag-overflow ug nasudlan ang reservoir so nasagolan og bacteria ang tubig (There's a possibility that the reservoir has overflowed and was filled up with dirty water) but we still have to determine and we will not confirm nga mao na gyud na," he said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Eric Tayag, director of the DOH's National Epidemiology Center, urged the residents to boil their drinking water to prevent the illness from spreading.
He advised the public to drink "only safe and clean water."
"If unsure, boil drinking water - upon reaching boiling point, extend boiling for two or more minutes, or do water chlorination," Tayag said. (CBC/ALR/MSN/Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro/Sunnex) For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Bacolod. (November 19, 2008 issue)
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