A COUNCILOR assured that Davao City Government has enough funds should a state of calamity be declared due to the rising number of dengue cases in the city.
Speaking during Kapehan sa Dabaw on Monda, August 12, at SM City Annex, Davao City Councilor Danilo Dayanghirang said Dabawenyos need not worry, saying, "We have appropriation here just a reversion as far as epidemic, as far as money is concerned, we don't have problem because what we need is just to declare Davao City under calamity brought about by dengue."
"We have enough money for the City Health even with the Disaster Council. They can use it anytime. In fact, we just gave one million to Batanes so as far as the money of the City Health for dengue purposes," he added.
August 6, the Department of Health (DOH) declared a national dengue epidemic as cases continued to increase. In Davao Region, it has already reached the alert threshold and there is a high possibility that it will reach alert epidemic if prevention is not undertaken.
Based on the data of the DOH, Davao City registered the highest number of dengue patients with 2,168 across the region and recorded a total of 11 deaths from January 1 to August 5 this year.
Meanwhile, amid the shortage on the supply of test kits for dengue, Health Assistant Secretary Abdullah Dumama said there are 10,000 Dengue NS1 Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) coming.
He said the low supply of the dengue test kits is due to indiscriminate distribution that even a patient only experiences mere fever, an NS1 RDT is already given.
"Bibigyan din ng briefing or orientation ang health centers on indiscriminate use of NS1 kasi hindi naman pagkalagnat mo kukunan kana agad so magpa-doctor ka muna and if there's a need for NS1, then that's the time. Kasi ngayon magbigay ka ng 10,000 diyan at 10,000 ang nilagnat, puro negative kasi wala namang dengue," Dumama said.