Cordillera COVID vax drive better, but dengue a threat

MOSQUITO HUNT In Baguio City, barangay workers and health department employees have been visiting communities to destroy breeding areas of mosquitoes and help keep dengue infections at a minimum. —NEIL CLARK ONGCHANGCO

BAGUIO CITY—The number of active COVID-19 infections in the Cordillera has risen slightly in the past two weeks, but provinces in the region maintained high vaccination rates, keeping the impact of the viral disease at the barest minimum for weeks, an official of the Department of Health (DOH) said on Thursday.

At a press briefing, Dr. Amelita Pangilinan, assistant director and spokesperson for the DOH in the Cordillera, said there were 31 active COVID-19 cases in the region as of Thursday, and 24 of these were from this city. Cordillera’s active infections were only 11 on June 2.

But in Abra province, 66 percent of its 5- to 11-year-old population (21,873 of the target 33,102 children) have been fully vaccinated, exceeding the performance of Baguio, which completed the jabs of 15,225 kids (32.42 percent of the 2022 target of 46,955 children) as of June 14.

Throughout the Cordillera, 169,281 children age 5 to 11 and 39,611 belonging to the 12 to 17 age group have yet to receive a single jab.

Baguio City still has the highest overall inoculation record in the region, having achieved 109 percent (333,895 of the 2022 total target population of 305,448).

Benguet province needs to give first doses to 131,254 residents (245,394 have completed their vaccination, or 62.18 percent, of the 394,649 target) while Ifugao province needs to start inoculating 72,645 (92,959, or 54 percent, have completed their jabs out of the 172,134 target).

There is sufficient vaccine supply in the region despite resistance from small groups of professionals and religious leaders in low vaccination communities, Pangilinan said.

Baguio is facing an oversupply problem and is working out a plan so vaccines will not go to waste. The city government purchased 380,000 doses of AstraZeneca.

City Health Services Officer Rowena Galpo said 140,000 doses had been delivered to Baguio while the rest of the supplies were in DOH storage because the city’s freezers could not accommodate them. The first expiration date for some of the batches was September this year.

Earlier, Mayor Benjamin Magalong suggested sending the unused vaccines to neighboring towns or making these part of donations to be sent overseas.

Kids vulnerable

But given that in-person classes will resume this in August, the local medical community sees a bigger threat coming from dengue, particularly for Cordillera children, because cases traditionally surge in three-year cycles, said DOH entomologist Alexander Baday.

“This (2022) is the third year,” he said, adding that dengue had afflicted 2,461 patients from January to June 4. The number, including 149 non-Cordillera residents, is 379-percent higher than the 513 dengue infections treated in the same period last year.

Abra is the only province in the region with a reduced dengue infection rate of 6 percent (14 cases) this year, compared to 15 cases recorded in the same period in 2021.

Children between 11 and 15 make up 14.79 percent (364 patients) of current dengue cases. At least four dengue fatalities were recorded in the region.

Baday commended Baguio for initiating a collection drive for discarded tires, where dengue-carrying mosquitoes thrive.

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