DOH UPDATE ON TYPHOID OUTBREAK. Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III gives an update on the Typhoid outbreak in Calamba, Laguna. Video taken by INQUIRER.net reporter Relly Carpio at the Department of Health compound in Manila, Philippines.
CALAMBA CITY, Philippines -- As cases of typhoid fever continued to escalate and an already crowded government hospital had started putting patients under a tent, government and health officials here were still uncertain of the cause of the outbreak.
As of Thursday, the number of persons afflicted with typhoid fever in the community had increased from 1,041 to 1,149 and the confinement in six hospitals had risen from 426 to 522, Dr. Dennis Labro, city health office's spokesperson, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.
Labro said the CHO, with the help of sanitary inspectors in the provincial level, was conducting an investigation and water sampling.
He added that the test would take some time because their staff members were going from house to house in every village, including unaffected areas.
The team also probed the possibility that there were leaks in the water facilities of the Calamba Water District (CDW).
CDW earlier denied the allegations that the water it supplied to villages was contaminated.
CDW general manager Alberto M. Cervancia said they had met the Department of Health's bacteriology standards for drinking water.
CDW had also sought the assistance of the Aqua Laboratory Center, an accredited agency of DoH for water testing, he added.
The Aqua Lab reported through physiochemical test on February 27 that the water sample from CWD passed the DOH standards and was negative for Salmonella typhi, the bacteria which causes typhoid fever.
"There could be other causes aside from water," Cervancia said.
Even the water test conducted by the CHO yielded negative results.
Leonor Elago, 25, resident of the village of Sampiruhan, said she was sure her seven-year-old daughter Leslie Anne got the disease from her school, the Sampiruhan Elementary School, because her family had been drinking water from their water pump, yet two of her younger kids had not fallen ill.
Leslie Ann, who has been sick with typhoid for one week now, is one of several child patients housed under a tent set up by the J. P. Rizal Memorial District Hospital as temporary shelter.
Elago, whose husband is a tricycle driver, said it was cold in the tent at night and Leslie Anne was already getting a slight cough, but she had no other options but to keep her daughter in the crowded public hospital.
From 155 people, the hospital was accommodating 170 typhoid patients as of Thursday.
Dr. Gonzalo Lavarias Jr., chief of hospital, said they would be setting up another makeshift tent to shelter the other patients as the hallways had become even more congested.
An open makeshift tent near the hospital's chapel, which set up Sunday, is housing around 58 patients.
Labro however clarified that typhoid cases might not really be increasing because some of the patients might have just sought hospitalization recently but had been enduring the disease for days.
"There were also days with lower hospital admission but last Wednesday was one of the peak days," he said, adding: "This is because of the long incubation period of the disease."
"The city government is both alarmed and concerned in what is happening. In declaring state of calamity, it would be easy to disburse calamity funds for medical supplies," Labro said.
He said city residents were also alarmed and facing difficulties in terms of the water source.
"Some residents are already thinking to move out of Calamba temporarily until the outbreak subsides," he said.
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