TACLOBAN CITY?Dengue fever cases in Eastern Visayas rose by 75 percent in the first half compared to the same period last year, the Department of Health reported.

DOH regional sentinel nurse Boyd Cerro said the fatalities from January to June stood at eight, the same number of fatalities recorded in the region for the whole year of 2007.

Cerro said the region?s dengue fever cases for the first half reached 298, a 75-percent increase from last year?s 170 cases for the same period in 2007.

Of the 298 people afflicted with dengue fever, around 60 percent were children not older than 14 years old.

Cerro said the two most recent fatalities, both minors and from Barangay Buenavista in Daram, an island town in Samar province, died in the first and second week of June.

The dengue fever that hit Buenavista, which has 554 residents, started in May and continued until the last week of June.

Cerro said his office had conducted defogging operations in the village on Friday on top of launching an information campaign.

He said the residents were urged to observe cleanliness and destroy possible breeding places of dengue-carrying mosquitoes.