Dirty water seen in illness of 103 in Cebu
CEBU CITY—At least 103 cases of suspected typhoid fever have been reported in Alegria town, 115 km southwest of here, according to health officials.
Dr. Cristina Giango, head of the Integrated Provincial Health Office, said health officials were still investigating the cause of the disease although they didn’t discount the possibility that contaminated water caused it.
She said samples were taken from the system that supplied water to Barangays Valencia and Madridejos where the patients came from.
Giango said officials discovered that the water system had only an improvised chlorinator and advised the municipal government to fix it.
Some of the residents, however, get their water from wells so these have to be checked too, she added.
Officials of the provincial government ordered the engineering department to check and fix the water system.
More than 30 of the 103 patients were brought to a private hospital in the town and in the district hospital in nearby Badian town. The rest were just treated at home after they showed similar symptoms.
Giango said a team from the provincial health office and the Department of Health in Central Visayas took blood samples from some of the patients.
The blood samples were sent to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Manila to determine if they were indeed afflicted by typhoid fever, she said.
She said the results could confirm suspicions that the residents were taken ill by typhoid fever. She said the disease didn’t spread as no additional cases were reported on Wednesday.
Samson dela Pena, municipal health officer, said the patients had fever, cough, cold and headaches which are symptoms commonly associated with typhoid fever.
Initial tests, however, showed that only six of the residents had typhoid fever, he said, seeking to quell talk that an outbreak gripped the town.
Emelita Guisadio, Alegria mayor, said while the number of victims was high, it didn’t point to an outbreak because not everyone who fell ill had typhoid fever.
