Dengue cases down but fatality rate up in Cebu City

Barangay Inayawan in Cebu City has conducted misting in some sitios after a patient died of dengue in the area in January 2020. | Photo courtesy of Inayawan Barangay Captain Kirk Bryan Repollo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Health has recorded two deaths by dengue in January 2020 putting the city under heightened alert for the mosquito-carried virus.

City Health Officer Daisy Villa said that the city recorded 286 cases of dengue in various barangays from January 1 to February 1, 2020, which is almost 50 percent lower than the cases recorded in 2019 for the same time period, which recorded 495 cases of dengue.

Villa said the decrease in cases means that the people were now actively preventing the spread of the virus through proper sanitation in their households.

However, the fatality rate has increased to 0.97 percent in 2020 as the City Health Department recorded 2 deaths among the 286 cases last January 1 to February 1 compared to the 3 death since 2019.

This is at least 0.4 percent higher than the fatality rate of dengue in the same time period in 2019, which was only 0.61.

The increase in fatality rate meant that more dengue patients, relative to the number of cases, recovered in 2019 compared to that in 2020 from January 1 to February 1.

“Meaning ani, bisan gamay rag kaso ta karong 2020, namatyan tag duha ka tawo. Taas atong fatality rate. Mao na ato bantayan for the rest of the year (This means that even if we had lower cases in 2020, we lost two people. The fatality rate increased. This is the pattern we need to monitor for the rest of the year),” said Villa.

The fatality rate would be important as Villa said this would be the capability of the city to prevent deaths among cases of dengue and would show the effectivity of the treatments combined with other factors.

Among the 80 barangays, Guadalupe and Labangon recorded most of the cases with 18 patients each, followed by Talamban with 15 cases, Tisa with 12 cases, Lahug with 11 cases, and Mambaling with 10 cases.

Other barangays recorded an average of five cases each.

However, deaths recorded in 2020 were in Barangay Taptap and Barangay Inayawan.

Villa said that there varied factors on how the two patients died including a past history of dengue and quick diagnosis.

One of the patients who succumbed to the virus had already contracted dengue in the past two years, increasing the risk of the patient’s death.

In a Facebook post, Inayawan Barangay Captain, Kirk Bryan Repollo, said they conducted misting in some sitios on February 7, 2020, following the first recorded death in the barangay.

On the same day, the barangay also conducted curtain impregnation or placing mosquito repellents in mosquito nets or kulambo.

Villa said these are only some of the ways to address the dengue problem in the barangay especially if there was a recorded death in the area or if the cases had been relatively high compared to previous years.

However, she said the most potent defense against dengue would be the vigilance of every household by ensuring that their place was not a viable place for mosquitoes to breed on.

“Let us continue our four o’clock habit. Every four o’clock daily, stop, look, and listen. Stop what you are doing. Look for any place mosquitoes can breed such as stagnant water and destroy these breeding places. And of course, listen to new information about dengue and how we can prevent its spread,” said Villa.

Villa said that without mosquitos, dengue would not spread.

She encouraged the public to be vigilant, work on cleaning their immediate environment, and report any public spaces to their respective barangays that could be breeding grounds for these carriers./dbs