DOH promotes four o'clock habit amid climate change

Davao City, Feb 15 (PIA) An officer of the Tropical Disease Unit of the City Health Office urged households to be more serious in destroying breeding grounds of dengue-carrying-mosquitoes by cleaning their home and surroundings regularly amid changing weather condition.

Elizabeth Banzon, public health nurse and head of the Tropical Disease Unit said the residents still need to do better the four o’clock habit which calls for regular cleaning inside and outside the houses particularly the possible breeding areas of mosquitoes.

She said that based on their random surveillance, there are houses which are clean in both inside and outside, but disc racks and water dispenser are left unattended.

Banzon said dengue-carrying-mosquitoes breed on clean water. She said in some hotspot-areas, mosquitoes dwell in open plastic containers.

“We detected an increase of dengue-incidence in the city’s third district that is why we are intensifying our information campaign,” Banzon said.

She said that there was one mortality out of the 343 dengue-fever cases monitored in January 2013, compared to nine deaths monitored during the same period in 2012. The conditions, she said, was attributed to the continuous rainfall in December 2012 to January this year.

Banzon said there was only one death, out of the six dengue cases reported in February 2013, which is far lower than the five deaths incurred in the same period on 2012.

She stressed that the dengue fever can be addressed through prompt consultation with the doctor and proper fluid management on the patient.

Banzon said parents must not take for granted even the slight fever of their children.

She also urged residents to avail of the chemical treatment of curtains and mosquito nets being given free by the CHO to ward off mosquitoes. “Chemically treated curtains and mosquito nets will last for six months, a good protection for households from mosquitoes,” Banzon said.

She also identified the dengue-fever hotspots in the city such as

Talomo North, Talomo South, Calinan, Tugbok, Baguio, Bunawan, Agdao, Barangay 5-A and 8-A.. (PIA XI-Joey Sem G. Dalumpines/LAC)