TRECE MARTIRES CITY, Cavite – The Provincial Health Office’s (PHO) Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (PESU) disclosed on Tuesday that the number of dengue fever cases in Cavite province reached 2,403 in the first semester of the year, up 79 percent from 1,343 cases in the same period last year.
In a report shared by the team of physicians from PESU, headed by Dr. Nelson C. Soriano, of the total number of cases reported this year, 72% (or 1,726 cases) were hospitalized and 29 others were laboratory confirmed. There were 12 reported deaths.
As in the past, PESU clarified to the public that “the recent increase in the number of dengue cases has nothing to do with Dengvaxia or the dengue vaccine.”
Report said that Bacoor City ranks first with the highest number of cases (302, or 13 percent), with the cities of General Trias and Imus, following at 2nd and 3rd with 299 and 270 cases, respectively.
Naic town is now ranked 4th, with 221 cases, followed by Dasmariǹas City (185), Tanza (174), Rosario (140), Trece Martires City (129), Silang (128) and Noveleta (103).
The ages of the dengue patients ranged from 4 months to 95 years (Meridian, 12 years) with majority of the cases (53%) affecting males.
Aside from the series of information dissemination drive at the onset of the rainy season, the PHO, has also embarked on efforts to ensure that measures to manage the environment to reduce mosquito reproduction and activity of the carrier are in place.
The PHO is also ensuring that community members will do their part to reduce viable breeding areas for mosquitoes.
For its monitoring dashboard for dengue, the focus area strategy includes identifying risk areas (construction and drainage sites, vacant premises and breeding prone trades like tires and bottles), enabling of pre-emptive measures, forewarning local communities and preventing a large outbreak.
Dengue is a disease caused by a virus of the genus flavivirus and is most commonly known as a mosquito-borne disease. Cases could become rampant during the wet/rainy season. (Gladys Pino/PNA)
