(Photo from the Facebook page of the Department of Health)
SAN PEDRO CITY—The Department of Health (DOH) ruled out the mosquito-borne illnesses dengue and Japanese encephalitis (JE) as the cause of the deaths of the two schoolchildren from Los Baños town in Laguna province.
“It’s most likely coincidental. The causes of their deaths were also different,” Bobbie Roca, the coordinator of the DOH Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit in Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon (Calabarzon), said on Thursday.
A nine-year-old female and a six-year-old male died on June 18 and 22, respectively, after suffering from fever and abdominal pains. Both children went to the same school in Los Baños, although one of them was a resident of Bay and the other of Los Baños.
The DOH deployed a team to investigate the deaths after several parents panicked over reports that the children succumbed to either of dengue or JE.
JE causes a part of the brain to swell resulting in symptoms like seizures, abdominal pains and high fever. It is transmitted through the bite of the culex mosquito that has previously bitten a hog or a duck.
The municipal health office, in an earlier statement, said both children tested negative for JE or even dengue, which is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Roca said they no longer conducted another round of tests since there were no more specimens available from the fatalities.
“Also, we are confident that the (children) really (tested) negative since (the test) was done by a well-known hospital in Manila (that has) the capacity and technology to conduct the laboratory test,” he said.
Roca said they went around the hospitals in Los Baños and found no records that may suggest JE cases in the town.
He said they could not divulge the medical history of the children without their parents’ consent but assured the public that the cause of their death was not a cause for alarm. JPV