Good news/ bad news; better?

Last Saturday, I received word that the Department of Health (DOH) released a report about the current state of dengue in the country.

- CITO BELTRAN

In the report, the DOH announced that the number of dengue-related deaths in 2024 so far has reached 881 and 340,860 recorded cases of dengue since the beginning of 2024 or 81 percent higher compared to 2023 where there were only 188,574 cases.

The "good news" is that the Department of Health has come clean with the actual figures and has admitted that there is an alarming number of dengue cases, which is why the DOH has issued the health alert as well as in anticipation of a potential increase in dengue cases resulting from the series of typhoons the country experienced in the last 30 days.

It seems that the DOH is now forced to admit the record number of dengue cases and dengue-related deaths, partly because various members of media have been writing about the matter as a result of friends and relatives getting seriously ill or dying from dengue.

Then there are the numerous declarations of a dengue outbreak in several provinces or LGUs such as Dasmariñas, Cavite where they recorded 1,100 cases and seven deaths. Other provinces and cities had done likewise in past months while Quezon City, which is the biggest LGU in Metro Manila and has one of the highest number of dengue cases, will ramp up their anti-dengue campaign this month by staging several dedicated dengue training programs for all their health workers.

As far as the DOH report is concerned, what we don't know is if there has been an actual 25-percent spike in dengue-related deaths in the last two weeks or if it's another case of delayed reporting from the field.