MANILA, Philippines -- With three persons killed by firecrackers during the New Year revelry, health authorities want to totally ban all kinds of firecrackers and fireworks in residential areas in the next New Year celebrations.

?We are recommending the total ban because this is the first time that deaths due to firecrackers have been reported. In the previous years, fatalities were mainly due to ?watusi? ingestion and stray bullets,? Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said Monday.

The fatalities in the last New Year celebration included a seven-year-old who got injured by "kwitis."

Duque said the three deaths were the first in the 18 years that the Department of Health (DOH) has been monitoring firecracker-related injuries.

The DOH surveillance report as of 6 a.m. of January 4 showed that three died after sustaining injuries from firecrackers while 874 others were seriously injured by pyrotechnics products.

This year's tally is higher by 26 per cent than that of last year, despite the DOH's relentless campaign against the use of any kind of firecrackers, specially by children who made up half of those who were injured.

Meanwhile, 42 other persons were hit by stray bullets during the revelry while a woman was reported to have attempted suicide by eating watusi sticks.

Duque said a seven year-old boy from Cabanatuan City and a 29 year-old man from Baguio City died of cerebral concussion secondary to blasting on January 1.

He said boy was hit by a kwitis, a legal firecracker, at his upper eye lid on December 31. He suffered a concussion and was rushed to the hospital where he died the next day, the first day of the new year.

?He was a passive case because he was just a bystander,? Duque said.

Another fatality, meanwhile, was reportedly intoxicated when he lighted the jumbo kwiton bomb, an illegal firecracker, on January 1.

When the firecracker exploded, he was hit on the right temple. He was dead on arrival at the hospital.

?We should take the total banning of firecrackers even more seriously now with these deaths. We should not just ban the kwitis and the illegal firecrackers that cause the deaths of these two individuals because if the seemingly harmless watusi is able to not just maim but kill, then the other so-called legal firecrackers might also do the same in the future,? Duque said.

?We can?t risk more lives anymore before we take the big step of totally banning these potentially killer pyrotechnic devices,? he added.