PHO: DOH declaration of dengue outbreak foul
PROTOCOL NOT OBSERVED
LINGAYEN–The Provincial Health Officer here strongly denied there is a dengue outbreak in Pangasinan and asked the Department of Health (DOH) to rectify its declaration and reveal the data used as basis for declaration.
Dr. Anna Teresa de Guzman told The PUNCH on Sept. 10 that Pangasinan only registered 10 per cent increase of suspected dengue cases from January to present with 1,700 compared to previous year’s data of same period which was 1,500.
De Guzman said, “First of all there is violation of protocol because we should have been given notice by the DOH and second, they don’t consider the economic impact (of their declaration).”
She said, “People’s common understanding of an outbreak is almost all towns have several cases, and many clustering of cases but we don’t have clustering of cases in any town.”
De Guzman said tourists planning to go to Pangasinan like in the world-famous Hundred Islands in Alaminos City or the Basilica Minore in Manaoag might back out because of such declaration.
She said DOH should have described Pangasinan merely as ‘hotspot,’ since there is no cluster of dengue incidents in the province.
“We, in Pangasinan, are asking the DOH for clarificatory explanation (for such declaration),” de Guzman said.
She said the “DOH wanted to create awareness to the public and the provinces mentioned about dengue but the approach is foul.”
If the number used was those seeking medical attention in municipal health offices or rural health units due to fever, de Guzman said it would be incorrect to claim immediately it was dengue as these have no confirmatory tests.
She said the data used by the Provincial Health Office in Pangasinan on dengue were those confined in hospitals, as agreed upon earlier, “as these are confined cases that went through laboratory tests”.
There were eight recorded deaths in Pangasinan this year compared to last year with only one, she said. But four of the cases happened in first quarter, one each in April and May and the other two were recently, she added.
She said if the DOH used incidents during rainy season in June, July, August, “that means we only had two (mortality)”.
De Guzman said Dr. Julia Raquel Magalong, the provincial DOH officer in Pangasinan and Dr. Rosie Pamintuan, in charge in DOH regional office in La Union on disease surveillance, were also not aware about the data used by the DOH for the declaration of dengue outbreak. (Tita Roces)
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