Dengue Alert

THE Cebu City Police Chief is calling on the Department of Health (DOH) to intensify its information campaign against dengue fever.

Senior Supt. Patrocinio Comendador Jr. made the appeal yesterday after his two sons were diagnosed with dengue fever early this month.

Comendador hails from the northern part of Cebu but lives with his two sons in barangay Kamputhaw, Cebu City.

Comendador said his two sons were staying with him in the city because they attend school here.

The eldest, 15, was recently released from a private hospital. His eleven-year-old son, whose condition has improved, remains in the hospital.

Last year, the daughter of Senior Supt. Anthony Obenza, chief of the Police Regional Office's personnel division, died of dengue.

Three persons died of dengue in Kamputhaw, said Durinda Macasocol, Cebu City Health Statistics officer.

Comendador's sons were among the 1,460 persons afflicted with dengue in Cebu City from January to October this year, records at the Cebu City Health Departmetn showed.

Some 32 deaths were recorded over the same period.

Macasocol said the five new fatalities of dengue were from barangays Apas, Punta Princesa, Inayawan and Day-as.

Records showed that there were more dengue cases in the city reported this eyar compared to last year although the number of deaths went down this year.

According to the City Epidemiology Statistics and Surveillance Unit of CHD, two or three persons out of every 100 cases die of dengue. The incident rate is 1.76 which means one or two persons are dengue inflicted for every 1000 population in the city.

The other Cebu City barangays with dengue cases are Labangon, Guadalupe, Tisa, Lorega-San Miguel, Careta, Mambaling, Bacayan, Talamban, Basak-San Nicolas, Lahug, Luz, Pardo, Banilad, Sudlon II and Binaliw.

Cebu City Councilor Edgardo Labella has also urged the public as well as the concerned government agencies to strengthen the dengue campaign with the noted increase of dengue cases in September.

Labella called on Cebu City residents to always keep clean their surroundings especially in places where the dengue-carrying mosquitoes breed.

The Cebu City government's information campaign included advise to residents to eliminate breeding placed of dengue-carrying mosquitoes such as used tires, refrigerator water bins, and water in water vases.