ILOILO CITY – The Department of Health Western Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH WV CHD) has activated its Regional Dengue Task Force and Inter-Agency collaboration for outbreak preparedness and response strategies as cases in the region reached 10,188, with 20 deaths from Jan. 1 until Aug. 3 this year.
In a virtual press conference on Monday, Medical Officer IV of the Infectious Disease Cluster, Dr. Bea Natalaray, said the task force, composed of several DOH WV CHD units is involved in the surveillance, supplies distribution and monitoring of hospitals.
The inter-agency collaboration includes 12 government agencies for updating on other infectious diseases to help in the response.
“The regional office conducted training for health workers in the rural health units and district hospitals in dengue case management and vector surveillance. Monitoring teams were deployed to areas with clustering of cases and hotspot areas to provide technical assistance on outbreak preparedness and response,” she said.
The DOH has already provided mosquito control commodities, including mosquito nets and machines for indoor residual spraying; diagnostic commodities, such as dengue NS1 kits and rapid anti-body test kits; and treatment commodities to local government units.
Dengue cases in the region were higher by 114 percent when compared with the same period last year, with 4,760 cases, including 23 deaths.
Based on the DOH WV CHD data, Iloilo province has 3,914; Negros Occidental has 1,584; Aklan has 1,319; Capiz, 1,083; Guimaras, 809; Antique, 637; Iloilo City, 482; and Bacolod City, 360.
Iloilo and Negros Occidental have six deaths each, Capiz has three, and the rest of the fatalities came from the remaining provinces and highly urbanized cities.
Natalaray added that 36 percent of those affected belong to the 1 to 10-year-old age group, while 31.9 percent came from the 11-20 age bracket.
“This tells us that we need to focus on the prevention activities on our school-age children, particularly extending our 4S strategy in schools,” she said.
The 4S strategies include the search and destroy breeding places, self-protection measures, seek early consultation, and support fogging and spraying.
In her presentation, Natalaray said the 523 barangays in the region have a clustering of cases.
“There is a clustering of cases if the barangay has more than two cases in one month,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Iloilo provincial government called for an emergency meeting on Monday to address the surge in cases.
Among those discussed was the need to activate the emergency operations center and elevate the alert status to blue in response to the rising dengue cases.
Data from the Iloilo Provincial Health Office showed Passi City, which recorded the highest cases in the province, already declared a state of calamity on Aug. 9.