CITY OF TABUK, Kalinga -- Health authorities in the province reminded the public to keep their environment always clean amidst the sudden increase in dengue cases from July 2 to August 5 this year compared to the same period last year.
Jose Pardito of the Provincial Health Office (PHO) Dengue Monitoring Center reported 181 dengue cases during the period compared to 93 last year or an upsurge of 52 percent.
Tabuk City, a reported top-endemic area had 168 with clustered cases while Pinukpuk had 13 cases. No death has been recorded.
Based on their monitoring report, Pardito said cases started to shoot up on the third and fourth weeks of July with 30 and 65 cases, respectively compared to 13 and 34 in the same period in 2016.
However, for the overall dengue situation of the province, the 420 cases from January to August 12 dropped by 27 percent compared to 574 for the same period last year.
The PHO urged residents to maintain clean environment which is still the most effective step against dengue.
The Office is also set to conduct anti-dengue misting operation.
As counterpart and requirement, endemic barangays must first conduct massive clearing operation since it will be all useless to give misting operation if there are still mosquito breeding sites in the area, Pardito said.
He informed rural health units are now equipped with dengue test kits as first-step measure to determine dengue-suspect patients so that they will be given proper medical management.
Every rural health unit has trained health worker for the test, he added. (PR)