FRUSTRATED with some health and barangay officials’ inaction on the dengue problem, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña reminded them to go out, look for breeding sites of mosquitoes and eliminate the pests.
Osmeña warned them yesterday that if they continue to be lax, the number of dengue cases will continue to rise.
He said the City Government has already done everything it can to prevent deaths due to the dengue virus, such as providing free blood test and treatment for dengue fever.
The rest, he said, is up to barangay officials, particularly in finding and eliminating the breeding sites of dengue-carrying mosquitoes and cleaning the affected areas.
Preach
Osmeña also lamented that even the residents are not giving importance to the campaign against dengue.
“This information drive has to be consistent. You really have to go around like an apostle. You have to preach because no one is listening,” he told barangay and health officials.
The City Health Department (CHD) has recorded 223 dengue cases in the city this year, five of which resulted in death.
This is higher compared to the same period last year, which only saw 131 cases and four deaths.
Osmeña pointed out, though, that the number of cases last year was still lower than the figures in 2008, which saw a drastic increase in the number of dengue cases.
“This is getting to be a very frustrating experience... I’m not getting much action from our health department... they’re not aggressive enough. Our barangay officials are just lax. We keep pushing them and they’ll move and after that, they just forget it... I attribute this pick-up simply because they’re getting lax in our drive,” he said.
Aggresive
The mayor said he will appoint somebody who is aggressive, focused and vicious to lead the City’s dengue prevention program, and to coordinate with the Cebu City
Medical Center and the CHD to strengthen the campaign.
“All we have to do is do what we’ve been doing before and do it correctly. I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s very simple, the first thing to do is find the critical areas in the barangay, but the barangays want to be spoon-fed. The CHD doesn’t care, it just records it,” he said.