Classrooms with screened windows, doors pushed to combat dengue

MANILA, Philippines – Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto is pushing for the inclusion of screened windows and doors in the specifications of classrooms to be built in public schools amid the rising dengue cases in the country.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Monday declared a national dengue alert as 106,630 dengue cases have been reported nationwide from January 1 to June 29, 2019, representing an 85 percent increase from the 57,564 cases reported over the same period in 2018.

READ: DOH declares national dengue alert

“During school days, one in four Filipinos are in public schools,” Recto said in a statement Monday, referring to 27 million students taught by 830,000 teachers in about 47,000 schools this year.

“If Filipinos congregate there, then we should make sure that mosquitoes don’t go to school with them. Hindi dapat naka-enrol si Aedes aegypti (mosquito species that carries the dengue virus), o kung nandoon man, dapat i-expel,” Recto added, stressing that schoolchildren form the largest group of dengue victims.

Recto argued that schools would stop being “injection points of dengue” if new classrooms would “come with screened windows and old ones will likewise be fitted, in addition to other measures which are effective in battling dengue, like destroying mosquito breeding places.”

“In 2015, there was already a plan by the DOH to install screens in 20,000 classrooms, to add to 7,620 classrooms which were already installed with chemically-treated screens by then,” he also said.

“Doon sa classrooms na walang screens, ang maaaring gawin is we budget for their purchase and let it be installed by school stakeholders, bayanihan style. Ang importante ay maikabit (In classrooms still without screens, a budget can be allocated, and let stakeholders take care of the installation, bayanihan style. What’s important is that it is installed),” Recto added.

According to the lawmaker, the Department of Education maintains 757,006 rooms nationwide, 687,757 of which are instructional classrooms and 69,249 for administrative use and support services like canteens and clinics. /gsg