Noting a sharp increase in the number of dengue cases from the period covering January to September this year, the local government of Quezon City has activated a special task force that will focus on raising dengue awareness in its communities.
Three barangays were identified as having posted a massive increase in dengue case, the Quezon City Health Department said, representing 4,557 individuals infected in the said period.
The QC Health Department has raised the red flag “following a 59-percent jump in dengue cases from 2,862 cases in the January to September period in 2016, the number rose to 4,557 in the same period in 2017.” A technical working group, composed of the local government’s Health Department and the city Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, was formed to focus on information and education campaigns and community cleanup, especially in barangays Payatas, Commonwealth and Batasan Hills.
Dengue fatality rates have also increased to 1.22 percent, surpassing the 1 percent considered as the safe threshold, according to the report from Quezon City health department .
“Dengue is not only a health problem; it also involves the behaviors of the communities. Help needs to come to the stricken communities,” medical officer Maria Lourdes Eleria said in a separate statement. Eleria is convinced that the number of dengue cases can drastically decrease if breeding sites are permanently abolished in communities and school.
“Most people don’t know that there are places in their communities that can be breeding sites. We’re seeing that dengue mosquitoes have been breeding even in clean water, as well as barangays with dump sites and in plastic bottles left out in the rain,” according to Eleria.
Eleria emphasized that action should be widespread and consistent in the barangays during cleanup operations in order to curb dengue-related deaths.
City Administrator Aldrin Cuña said that the local government is mobilizing all the barangays in the city to address the outbreak, saying that dengue-causing mosquitoes are not contained in the mentioned three barangays with high cases of dengue.
“We need to take a proactive stance on the matter. Come up with a work plan on how to fix the inefficiencies in communities and see after one month is there are changes.” Cuña said.