SOME villages in Baguio City have become complacent on dengue prevention due to misting operations.
"We already have the administrative order of the mayor on dengue prevention pero marami pa rin sa kanila ang hindi sumusunod," City Health Services Officer Rowena Galpo told SunStar Baguio.
During the monitoring operations of CHSO, Galpo said some citizens do not comply with the dengue prevention order of the city.
"May monitoring teams kami na pumupunta sa mga barangays at nakita namin na marami ang hindi sumusunod sa administrative order dahil meron na daw naman nag-misting sa lugar nila. But we emphasize that misting is only a temporary measure to prevent dengue. We have to search and destroy all the breeding sites," Galpo said.
Three teams from the CHSO are conducting monitoring in villages three times a week.
Misting was done in 30 prioritized villages in the city but the CHSO continues to cover all the remaining 98 villages.
Galpo added clean-up drive is still needed because misting kills the adult mosquitoes for a certain period of time only.
"Ang pinaka-mabisa pa rin and we recommend na method of prevention ng dengue is the 4S which are first search and destroy, self-protection which we advise the public to wear long sleeves and pants or repellant patches, seek consultation kapag may fever na for two days then say yes only to fogging when needed," Galpo said.
Galpo added misting affects the environment and also builds resistance of mosquitoes if it is done continuously.
"May mga studies na maaring mag-build up ang resistance ng mga lamok kapag nag tuloy-tuloy ang misting. Lalo na kapag hindi namatay or nakasurvive na ang lamok," Galpo said.
"When we search and destroy the breeding sites, we are not only preventing dengue kahit Zika virus mapre-prevent din natin so sana magtuloy-tuloy ang ating clean-up drive at sundin natin iyong order ng City," Galpo added.
At present, there are around 1900 dengue cases in the city from January to August 22, with two deaths recorded.
"We are already looking at the decreasing number of dengue cases sa city kasi tapos na iyong peak or height ng pagdami ng dengue cases natin but we should not be complacent kasi patuloy pa rin ang pag ulan. We should not be complacent and must continue with our dengue prevention kasi kapag nagpabaya tayo maaring tumaas na naman ang recorded dengue cases natin," Galpo stated.
During the month of June and July an average of 100 cases were recorded weekly while last August, cases went down to 40 weekly.