KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines—Two patients succumbed to dengue here in the past two weeks, officials said Wednesday.
The new deaths brought to three the total number of patients who died of the mosquito-borne disease since January.
Jasna Sucol, chief of the City Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (Cesu), said the fatalities were an 8-year-old boy and a 27-year-old woman.
Sucol said the dengue situation here has become a great cause for concern even if there were few cases recorded from January to August this year when compared to the similar period last year.
During the first eight months of 2015, 332 dengue cases had been recorded here compared to the 280 cases from January to August this year.
“(This year) is alarming especially so that dengue had already claimed three lives in Kidapawan,” Sucol explained.
Mayor Joseph Evangelista ordered city health officials to strengthen the anti-dengue campaign and bring it to the purok level in all 40 villages in the city.
“We need the cooperation of everybody here. Let us unite in combating this disease to save the lives of our loved ones,” he said.
Evangelista said cooperation among residents had been proven effective in the case of barangays (villages) Onica and Patadon, where no single case of dengue had been recorded this year.
It was learned that residents of the two villages would take time to clean their surroundings, bayanihan-style, to deny mosquitoes of breeding places. RAM
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