CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu Provincial Health Office (PHO) is asking the public to continue in its efforts against dengue as it sees a continuous drop in the number of cases of the mosquito-borne illness in the province in the third quarter of the year.
PHO Head Dr. Christina Gianggo said the community’s awareness and efforts on cleaning and destroying breeding sites has helped a lot in the fight against dengue.
Gianggo reported that the trend of the dengue cases in Cebu has dropped to 260 in August 2019 from the 624 incidents in July.
The number of cases in August is the third-lowest this year next to April and May, which recorded 197 and 189 cases, respectively.
The August 2019 case is also lower by almost half compared to the 510 cases in August 2018.
In September, the numbers are also looking good as in the first six days of the month, the PHO has recorded 71 dengue cases in the province. With three more weeks in September, Gianggo said they still expect this to be lower than that of September 2018, which saw 710 cases.
Still, Gianggo wants the public to continue to stay alert against dengue.
“Continue lang gihapon [on the community efforts against dengue]. Dili lang ta mokumpyansa kay wa ta kahibaw, basin modaghan na pod ang mga cases,” Gianggo told CDN Digital.
(I urge the public to continue their efforts against dengue. Let us not be complacent because when we slacken, this might result in the surge of cases again.]
Read more: Dengue cases hit 250,000; more than 1,000 dead
Since January 2019, the PHO has already logged 4,058 dengue cases in the entire province. While this is higher than the 2,673 cases for the same period in 2018, the number of deaths resulting from the disease has reduced to 23 from the 26 last year.
Toledo City has the highest mortality rate in 2019 with four deaths followed by Bantayan town with three deaths.
“The barangays still continue to intensify their strategies like the cleanup drives while the Rural Health Units (RHUs) also continue to monitor the dengue cases,” Gianggo said. /bmjo