Barangay Parian, Cebu City is reported has the most number of dengue cases. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)
Cebu Provincial government officials are attacking the breeding ground of mosquitoes with a province-wide cleanup drive in their bid to lessen or stop the surge of dengue cases in the province.
“Specifically, ang mahitabo ani maglimpyo ta sa mga canal, sa palibot aron maubos nato ang count sa cases sa dengue. As we all know ang kontra gyud nato dinhi ang larva sa mosquito, ilang kapuy-an. (Specifically, what will happen is that we will clean the canals, and the surrounding. As we all know our real enemy is the breeding grounds of these mosquitoes),” said Dr. Rene Catan, provincial health officer of the province’s scheduled cleanup drive on Thursday.
Catan said the province-wide cleanup drive would be participated in by the barangays, local government units, national agencies like the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), Department of Education (DepEd).
In fact the DepEd’s response is very encouraging to the point that they extended the cleanup drive up to the other provinces of Central Visayas, Catan said.
He added that as far as DepEd is concern, the cleanup drive is region-wide.
However, larvicidals are not yet available for distribution.
Catan said that PHO is still purchasing larvicidals which will be distributed to the LGUs.
“But kanang cleanup drive sugdan na nato aron maanad nata everyday. Larvicides will be given later. Mao ni ang effective nga paagi aron maubos ang kaso sa dengue (But that cleanup drive should begin and larvicides will come later . Cleaning the surroundings is the most effective to help stop the increase of dengue cases),” Catan said.
The Provincial Board placed the whole province under state of calamity after seeing an “abnormal” increase of dengue cases in Cebu compared to last year.
As of the present, Catan said that there are now almost 7,000 dengue cases in the province with 60 fatalities.
He said an increase of a thousand dengue cases was noted in a span of a month.
As of the first week of October, 5,500 dengue cases were reported with more than 50 deaths.
Based on the monitoring data of PHO, as of this time, the latest fatality due to the mosquito-borne disease were one from Danao City, three from Talisay City and another three from Toledo City.