The Department of Health (DoH) said that it was expecting that the increasing number of dengue cases in the country will mostly likely to prevail until September.
“It is expected to be here until September and usually starts to wane after October, once the rainy season starts to go,” said Health Undersecretary Rolando Enrique Domingo.
Domingo said that it is during the rainy season that mosquitoes continue to grow in numbers.
“It’s definitely the water, especially now that we’re having rains. It rains today and will stop a couple of days so we have stagnant water there. Two to three days is enough for the life cycle of the mosquitoes. So, if the water is there for two to three days, it is enough to generate more mosquitoes,” explained Domingo.
On Tuesday, the Health department has declared a national dengue epidemic after 146,062 dengue cases, including 622 deaths have already been recorded nationwide since January up to July 20.
The DoH has also called on other government agencies, local government units, schools, offices, and communities to conduct the “Sabayang 4-O’clock Habit para Deng-Get Out” which focuses on the search and destroy of mosquito breeding sites.
“The main strategy is to make sure that we remove the vector which is the mosquito. We have to work together to make sure that the cleanliness is there…,” said Domingo. (Analou de Vera)