CEBU City Mayor Michael Rama is declaring war against dengue after the city’s cases have started to increase significantly since the start of the year.
In a virtual presser on Friday, June 24, 2022, Rama said he will issue an executive order (EO) to lay out the city’s plan of battle against dengue, including a “bottoms-up approach” in tackling the disease.
“Let us all declare war against dengue before again it will be devouring or what we call consuming all of us in terms of responding. (It) may not yet be an outbreak but if we will not act upon it, I will repeat, one death alone is a concern, how much more for 16 deaths,” said Rama.
According to Rama, the EO will mandate all 80 barangays and households under them to involve themselves in the campaign against dengue which includes a community effort to search and destroy possible mosquito breeding sites.
The EO will also tap the local police to conduct “rekurida” or public announcements to remind communities under them to implement precautionary measures against dengue.
Rama also reiterated the opening of “fast lanes” for dengue patients in all public and private hospitals in the city.
Rama also plans to convene a convergence meeting with all sectors to tackle how to solve the dengue threat.
Rama also reiterated his call to practice “parental-supervised household protection” as the city is combating not only the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) but also dengue.
“This new menace comes at a time while we are still on our road to recovery from the pandemic and the calamities. We cannot afford to allow us to face a triple whammy,” Rama added.
No outbreak yet
From January 1 to June 23 this year, the Cebu City Health Department (CHD) has already tallied 1,254 dengue cases with 16 mortalities.
In the same period last year, the CHD recorded only 62 dengue cases.
But the CHD said they still can’t consider this “outbreak” level.
Dr. Ilya Tac-ang, CHD epidemiologist, said there is no definite rule in declaring an outbreak, especially for dengue as spikes in cases often occur every three years.
“As we have mentioned that dengue is endemic in Cebu City, we have to review the past trend of dengue and here in Cebu. It is usually in every three years,” said Tac-ang.
Tac-ang added that the CHD can only declare that there is an outbreak once the increase in the number of cases will happen continuously.
Interventions
Dr. Marc Luen Remedio, CHD dengue coordinator, said they have conducted numerous activities in the city to combat the dengue threat including intensifying information and health education on dengue control, prevention at the barangay level and conducting clean-up drives at the sitio level.
Remedio added that dengue brigades in the barangays are now being activated for the modified “4 o’clock habit” which conducts search and destroy operations and larvicidal activities in possible mosquito breeding areas.
Dengue detection kits are also placed in health centers in the city for the early detection of the disease, Remedio said.