Press Release/31 January 2008

The Department of Health (DOH) today disclosed that it is launching simultaneously its regional kick-off activities for its To-DOH LABAN Sa DENGUE, the national anti-dengue campaign, this February with Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III leading the rites in the CARAGA region.

"Dengue is now a year-round threat because of rising temperatures and the unpredictable weather that brings in the rains in the normally dry and warm months of the year. Because of this phenomenon, there are already many reported dengue cases this early part of 2008. Adding to this is the heightened dengue awareness among the public, which makes them suspicious of any symptom closely associated with dengue and seeking medical attention right away," Duque explained.

During the press conference, the health chief encouraged local government officials to expand their search and destroy operations and include vacant lots and empty houses where dengue mosquitoes can secretly thrive.

"We cannot be complacent about these things. We understand that it is off-limits to barge into private properties. But we must invoke public safety and health and expand our “search and destroy” operations anywhere that the dengue mosquito can breed and thrive. It is useless for one household to participate in our aggressive sanitation drive and vector control when the house next to them is harboring mosquitoes. In the end, dengue prevention is about community action and we need the local governments to help us with this," Duque stressed.

Meanwhile, the DOH has initially given P2.5 million to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) to purchase re-agents needed for its dengue surveillance.

Duque said that with these re-agents, doctors will be able to tell right away which are dengue suspects from real dengue cases. It will also enable epidemiologic experts in the country to identify which strain of the dengue virus is circulating in a particular community.

Among the objectives of this procedure is to identify suspect cases and fully investigate them during routine surveillance and disease outbreaks. He said that this is going to be particularly helpful in times when there are many reports of clustering of dengue cases which may indicate a high probability of an outbreak.

"With the availability of re-agents, RITM can run hundreds of samples per day and make the results available within 24 hours. So, the results of blood samples collected from a reported clustering of cases sent to RITM for confirmatory test will be immediately available. In other words, this is going to be a big help in confirming cases before declaring if there is an outbreak or none," Duque explained.

The health chief added that the other objectives of RITM's dengue laboratory surveillance are to provide serological tests, to determine the circulating serotype, to provide baseline data on the prevalence of dengue in the country, and to recommend strategies for prevention and control.

On the other hand, Duque also disclosed today that the DOH has established a Dengue War Room at the National Epidemiology Center to facilitate faster tracking of reported dengue cases in different parts of the country and immediately identify areas where clustering of cases has been noted.

"This war room is going to be the DOH's dengue operation center where all reports of dengue cases nationwide, be it sporadic or clustering, will be collected and analyzed. This war room will help us identify the area where the next possible outbreak will take place. With such information, we can now swiftly send help and immediately arrest possible spread of dengue cases," the health chief explained.