Health execs urge public to help fight dengue

COTABATO CITY – Health officials in North Cotabato have expressed alarm over the rise in the incidence of dengue since January and urged the public to help contain the disease.

Dr. Eva Rabaya, North Cotabato’s Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) head, said that to date, a total of 1,162 dengue cases have been reported in North Cotabato’s 17 towns and Kidapawan City. 

During the same period last year, IPHO-North Cotabato only listed 306 dengue cases. 

Since she noticed the spike, Rabaya has directed all municipal health officials, as well as all health providers, especially those in the front line, to be proactive in containing the spread of the disease. 

“There is still no outbreak,” she told reporters here in an interview on Friday, as she sought the active participation of local government executives in the fight against dengue. 

Health providers admitted that they cannot do it alone and that they needed the support of the public. 

IPHO-North Cotabato data showed that Kidapawan City had the most number of dengue cases at 1,190. 

Other towns with high reported dengue cases were Makilala, Carmen, Midsayap, Kabacan, Pres. Roxas, Libungan, Aleosan, M’lang, and Matalam. 

Speaking over a local radio station, Royfrextopher Boholst, DOH 12 (Soccsksargen) entomologist, said that dengue-carrying mosquitoes also strike even during the dry season as what the province is experiencing now. 

Boholst noted that mosquitoes can survive for nine months even without water.  

Rabaya thus urged the public to practice the 4 o’clock habit of cleaning the surroundings to help destroy the breeding sites of dengue-carrying mosquitoes. (PNA)

 

 

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http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1065424
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