DAVAO CITY - The City Health Office (CHO) here will collaborate with bordering areas for the next three months in its continuous fight against malaria.
City Health Officer Dr. Josephine Villafuerte said Tuesday they are set to perform "border operations" with the towns of Talaingod, Bukidnon, and Cotabato and the surrounding areas of the city to combat the spread of malaria during the rainy season.
"We have outlined border operation in Marilog and Paquibato to visit other villages and sub-villages. We have also talked to Talaingod, Davao del Norte, Bukidnon for Barangay C-4, then Cotabato. We really have to work together for our boarders," Villafuerte said.
"From their border, they will come in to our boarder to help us. We already have an agreement but we still have to talk about the strategy. We have done this before with Bukidnon for Sitio Hilaria," Villafuerte added.
As the rainy season is expected to continue throughout September, there would perhaps be a rise in the number of cases of malaria, said Villafuerte, adding that she also expects this not to worsen as the CHO continues their efforts.
Villafuerte said there are more than 200 cases of malaria in the city to date.
Department of Health (DOH)-Davao Region information officer Ana Remolar, in an earlier statement, said malaria is more of endemic in far-flung areas because malaria-carrying mosquitoes like quiet places, while dengue-carrying mosquitoes like movement, emotions, and scents, among others.
Meanwhile, the 2nd Davao Regional Partnership Forum for Malaria Elimination was held recently spearheaded by the Philippine Movement Against Malaria (Philmam), the World Health Organization, and the DOH.
Villafuerte said the CHO has formed an unwritten partnership with Philmam and the latter agreed to help the city in controlling malaria.
"They will be sending us nets. As they have long distributed nets to places in the region they will pull out some of these and they will send it to us. They have also agreed to train microscopists and to send microscopes in some areas so that we will know from the villages themselves if someone is infected or not," she added.
Philmam executive director and program manager for the Pilipinas Shell Foundation Inc., Marvi Rebueno-Trudeau, renewed her call to the business sector and for communities to have a strong resilience against malaria.
"The medicine for malaria is free and it only takes P50 for you to have the test and to know if you are positive or not," Trudeau said.
She also urged big companies like mining corporations and banana plantations to take the lead in assuring that the employees are protected from malaria. (JCZ of Sun.Star Davao/Sunnex)