LINGAYEN – Is there a dengue epidemic in the province?

This is what a team from the regional office of the Department of Health (DOH) intends to verify when it arrived to probe the rising cases of dreaded dengue hemorrhagic fever which has already claimed 13 lives across the province, 11 of whom died in August alone.

But Dr. Racquel Magalong, epidemiologist from DOH based in La Union, said that they have to complete the consolidation of the  data from various hospitals and reconcile them before they decide to officially declare an outbreak or not.

Magalong’s team came to Pangasinan Wednesday and will remain in the province until next week for the data gathering and analysis.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ana de Guzman, assistant provincial health officer, confirmed that ,indeed there were already 13 deaths and a total of 691 cases across the province. The data, she said, came from government and big private hospitals considered as sentinel sites.

Two casualties each from the towns of Sison, Calasiao and Basista and one each in San Carlos City, Lingayen, San Nicolas, Sta. Barbara, Bolinao, Mangaldan and Malasiqui were reported.

From January to July this year, there were only 354 cases but another 337 cases were recorded in August 1 to 28 alone.

San Carlos City registered the highest number of dengue cases with 54 as of August 17 prompting the local government under Mayor Jolly Resuello to form Anti-Dengue Task Force and undertake massive clean up and fogging operations.

Last year, there were 1,051 dengue cases in Pangasinan.

De Guzman expressed hope that this year’s number of cases will not surpass last year’s data even as  she added her office has intensified the information drive to fight this mosquito-borne disease,  especially during the rainy months.- EVA

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