We should be alarmed over dengue

EYES WIDE OPEN

- IRIS GONZALES

I personally heard of two dengue deaths in a span of just a week. One is a five-year-old girl and another, a college student. Two deaths in a week may seem like nothing out of the ordinary, but I disagree. One death is already one too many. Even just a single loss of life is unacceptable.

The Department of Health (DOH) needs to be more proactive on this issue to raise public awareness, especially among those in the lower income segments where families tend to ignore a bout with fever to avoid hospitalization and other medical expenses.

A quick check of news about dengue would show that there aren't enough warnings from the DOH even as no less than the World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded the alarm bells on dengue.

The DOH's latest press release about dengue was issued last Nov. 7, highlighting that the number of deaths decreased this year compared to last year.

"A lower case fatality rate (CFR) of 0.26 percent has been observed as of Oct. 26, 2024, compared to last year's CFR of 0.34 percent for the same period of monitoring. This is likely attributed to better health-seeking practices and improved health care delivery," the DOH said.

As of October 2024, the DOH reported a total of 314,785 dengue cases nationwide. "Cases are declining overall, showing an eight percent decrease from Sept. 29 to Oct. 12, 2024, with 21,097 cases reported compared to the 23,032 cases reported from Sept. 15 to 28, 2024. All regions nationwide did not register an increase within this period, except for the National Capital Region (from 2,765 cases to 3,002 cases), Central Luzon (from 2,219 cases to 2,351 cases) and CALABARZON (from 2,907 cases to 3,513 cases)."