TACLOBAN CITY – Alarmed with the high number of cases of dengue fever in Eastern Visayas, the region’s health officials asked support from other government and private agencies to combat the viral disease.

Teogenes Baluma, regional director of the Department of Health in Eastern Visayas (DOH 8), said they were alarmed that, barely five months into the year, seven persons have already died of dengue fever complications.

The recorded cases from January to May this year was considered low at 107 but the mortality rate, he said, was very high since there were only eight fatalities in 2007 out of 1,221 cases recorded that year.

Addressing the spread of the disease, he said, should be the concern of everybody, and not only of the DOH.

Dengue fever is caused by an Aedes mosquito bite. Among the symptoms of dengue fever are high fever, vomiting, severe headache and bleeding, which could lead to death.

Dr. Adelfo Labnao, DOH 8 regional coordinator on dengue fever, said this year’s fatalities were from Baybay City and Dagami, both in Leyte; Sta. Rita town and the cities of Catbalogan and Calbayog, all in Samar; and Catarman in Northern Samar.

Catarman had two fatalities while the rest of the areas had only one case each. The fatalities’ age ranged from 2 years old to 17 years old.

The two regional health officials said the assistance of other government and private agencies on this campaign against dengue fever would make it easy to launch an effective information dissemination campaign.

Baluma said it would be better to start their information campaign while classes have yet to start to reach both parents and children.

Labnao said children of school age are the most common victims of the disease due to their low resistance.

He said DOH anchors its dengue information campaign on four S – Search and destroy the breeding places; Self-protection; Seek early consultation; and Say yes to fogging.

Typhoid fever

In a related development, an 8-year-old boy died on Friday while 52 others were downed by typhoid fever in a Leyte town, the DOH regional office bared on Tuesday.

Regional sentinel nurse Boyd Cero said the lone fatality, who came from Barangay Dolho, Bato town, died on May 16 after he was confined in a private hospital.

Cero said the DOH-8 had yet to determine the cause of the typhoid fever that hit most of the 32 barangays in Bato town. The first typhoid fever case was first noted on May 12 with the last one reported on Sunday, Cero said.

Bato, 154 km from Tacloban City, is a fourth class town with over 32,000 population.

Cero believed the typhoid fever cases were “person-to-person transmissions with dirty food as the possible cause.”

He said the rise of typhoid fever cases coincided with the celebration of fiestas in several of the town’s barangays. Typhoid fever is an infectious disease with severe symptoms in the digestive system and could cause death if the patient did not receive immediate treatment, Cero explained.

He maintained that the DOH-8 has yet to consider the occurrence of typhoid fever in Bato as an outbreak.

Cero said some of the town’s villages reported one or two typhoid fever cases while there were barangays that have more than five cases. The lone fatality was from the village of Dolho.

The victims experienced severe dehydration, loose bowel movement and vomiting. The youngest among those afflicted with typhoid was a 3-year-old boy while the oldest was a 63-year-old man.