Tacloban mayor urges those with fever to visit health centers to avoid dengue

TACLOBAN CITY – The local government of this city has conducted a house-to-house drive to encourage parents, whose children have fever, to visit the nearest health center and avoid death caused by dengue.

City Mayor Alfred Romualdez said he believed that death due to dengue may be prevented with early detection.

“I am appealing to the public to visit the nearest health center. And if the children are showing symptoms like fever, have them examined immediately. Dengue is practically 100-(percent) curable if detected early,” he said.

There are seven health centers in the city. From January to July 23, eight persons have died in the city due to dengue fever, the City Health Office (CHO) reported.

Seven of the fatalities were children who lived in the resettlement sites located in the northern part of Tacloban.

Residents of these resettlement sites are families whose houses were destroyed when Supertyphoon “Yolanda” pummeled the city on Nov. 8, 2013.

City health officer Jaime Opinion said their campaign aims to urge parents or anyone in the household to have themselves examined if they have a fever.

“The mayor does not want any death due to dengue,” Opinion said.

Dengue is caused by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The disease has no known cure and can be fatal. The infection triggers a severe flu-like illness often followed by a drop in an infected person’s platelet count.

At least 96 of the city’s 138 barangays have cases of dengue, said Opinion.

The city government has put up a “rehydration unit” at its training center where patients of dengue fever could be rehydrated for at least two days.

But those who are suffering from severe dengue would be immediately brought to the hospital.

Romualdez said he had no plan yet of putting the city under a state of calamity due to its dengue cases.

“One of the purposes of the declaration is for us to access our (calamity) funds. But so far, we have enough resources to address the problem,” Romualdez said.

He appealed to the Department of Health to provide more rapid test kits to the city government for early detection if one has dengue fever.

In the Eastern Visayas region, the provinces of Leyte and Eastern Samar had been declared under the state of calamity due to the high dengue fever cases.

The Department of Health has reported that the region has about 7,775 cases with 27 deaths as of July 2. /lzb