Dengue rise stalks North Luzon provinces

SAN FERNANDO CITY—Health officials in La Union have recommended to the provincial board the declaration of a state of calamity in the province due to the increasing number of dengue fever patients.

Dr. Hector Beñas, provincial health officer, said the declaration won’t mean, however, that the province cannot handle the increasing number of cases.

“We can handle the situation. We are declaring a state of calamity to fund any extra activity or logistics,” he said.

He said La Union has recorded 2,028 dengue cases and seven deaths since January, almost equal to the 2,387 cases and seven deaths from January to December last year.

A state of calamity was also declared in La Union last year. In 2009, the province had only 792 cases and five deaths.

Last week, health officials in Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur reported increasing numbers of dengue fever patients. Dengue cases are also increasing in Pangasinan.

“We are doing everything we are supposed to do. We’re eliminating breeding places of mosquitoes and all places where water could accumulate. Maybe the virus has mutated, maybe it has become resistant,” Beñas said.

But he said it was possible that some doctors might have “over-diagnosed” patients, which, he said, is normal because only the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Metro Manila can confirm dengue cases.

“I don’t really know what’s causing the remarkable rise in the cases. But most of them, if not all of them, are actually unconfirmed cases,” he said.

“To confirm a dengue case, we must identify and isolate the dengue virus. Unfortunately we cannot do this here. Only RITM can do that,” Beñas said.

He said if a patient has fever, rashes and decrease in platelet count, doctors automatically associate these with dengue. “Of course, these fit the description of a dengue case but the confirmatory diagnosis is the isolation of the virus from the blood,” Beñas said.

Dr. Valeriano Lopez Jr., Department of Health director in the Ilocos, said he believed the spread of the disease was caused by negligent households.

“Dengue [prevention] is basically a community activity. If one is remiss, he becomes a source,” Lopez said.

In the region, DOH noted a 184 percent increase in dengue cases from last year’s figures. Lopez said the current figure is above the average number of cases in the last five years.

As of Aug. 7, the region recorded 4,865 dengue fever patients with 37 deaths. In 2010, only 1,699 cases and 24 deaths were recorded.

In Pangasinan, health officials noted a 300 percent increase in the number of dengue cases, from 323 cases with six deaths last year, to 1,046 cases with 10 deaths since January.

Dengue cases at the Region I Medical Center (RIMC) in Dagupan City have gone up, with 52 patients admitted at the pediatrics department in the past 48 hours, hospital officials said.

With reports from Marla Viray and Yolanda Sotelo