THE DEPARTMENT of Health-Center for Health Development 6 (Western Visayas) has called for sustained efforts against dengue as records from the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (RESU) showed declining cases in the region.
Dr. Rosemarie Lamirez, DOH-CHD 6 medical coordinator in a press conference this week, said that they will continue with their procurement activities for logistics.
Mosquito nets and insecticides will still be provided to the six provinces and two highly-urbanized cities (HUCs) of the region.
“We would still be monitoring the implementation of dengue response because we don’t want it done only during the height of the outbreak,” Lamirez said, adding that being complacent will just allow the possible resurgence of cases.
In the future, they plan to add more training on case management, pesticide application, and vector surveillance. These are areas, she said, they saw it necessary to be given more attention.
Dr. Ma. Sophia S. Pulmones, chief of the DOH-CHD 6 Local Health Support Division, added there are still areas with clustering of cases and deaths.
“The program also continues to inform our local chief executives to continue their enhance 4S strategy as well as their vector control to ensure that the mosquito vector will be eliminated in areas where there are deaths and clustering of cases also occur,” Pulmones said.
Health facilities are also encouraged to just retain their dengue fast lanes, wards and hydration centers so that if there is a resurgence of cases, they are ready to respond.
Dr. Jessie Glen Alonsabe, head of the DOH–CHD 6 RESU confirmed that dengue cases in Western Visayas dropped below the epidemic threshold but it is still within the alert level.
“The threat of our dengue cases is already going down. It is already below the epidemic threshold and it’s within the alert level. I hope that this will continue until the end of the year,” he said.
For the 36th morbidity week covering Jan. 1 to Sept. 7, Western Visayas recorded 1,102 new cases; 722 new cases during the 37th morbidity week, which is from Jan. 1 to Sept 14, and 636 new cases in the 38th morbidity or Jan. 1 to Sept 21 period.
“It’s below the epidemic threshold on the 37th morbidity week,” Alonsabe said in a follow-up interview on Tuesday.
He explained that they use a formula to compute for the alert and epidemic threshold.
“It’s a statistical formula based on the average number of cases in the past five years. We use the standard deviations as the basis for computing the thresholds,” he said.
Alonsabe clarified though that they could not lift the declaration of the dengue outbreak because it is done at the national level. What they can do is to “scale down” their activities to make it aligned with the alert level.
He said that the region from January 1 to up to September 21 this year recorded 4,930 cases with 215 deaths.
Meanwhile, with the drop in cases, DOH-CHD 6 personnel and volunteer doctors from as far as Cebu City who augmented health personnel in various public hospitals in the region were also recalled back to their original assignments. (By Perla Lena)
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