BAGUIO CITY — The city government has announced it will impose a penalty against those who do not follow dengue-control measures as it intensifies the implementation of the city's Anti-Dengue Ordinance.
The move, according to the City Health Services Office (CHSO), became necessary after the number of dengue cases reached an alarming level in the Summer Capital.
The City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit of the CHSO said a total of 940 cases have already been recorded since January up to present, or 134 percent higher than the 401 cases recorded in the same period last year.
Seventy-one percent of the total cases were from the city while the rest were from other localities.
For the weeks 21 to 24, there was a 376-percent increase in cases or from 75 in 2023 to 376 this year.
The 10 hot spots villages with clustering of cases have been identified, including Irisan, Bakakeng Central, Asin Road, Pacdal, Sto. Tomas Proper, Gibraltar, West Quirino Hill, Mines View Park, Middle Quirino Hill and Victoria Village.
The ordinance prohibits the following: storing water in containers not tightly covered, keeping and storing water-filled vases and using ornamental plants with pot saucer, keeping or having discarded tires, discharging wastewater or sewage unto streets, roads, alleys and pathways, and conducting chemical control methods without clearance from the CHSO and the Department of Health.
'Any uncooperative owner, group of persons or public or private entity can be summoned to appear before the punong barangay to explain at reasonable cause why no legal action should be taken upon the violator,' the ordinance states.
Violators are liable for the following penalties: first offense — render community service for three days in the village, second offense — fine of P1,000 and conduct of community service for three days, and third offense — P3,000 and imprisonment of two days at the discretion of the court.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong called for an intensified implementation of the anti-dengue ordinance after CHSO medical officers and sanitation inspectors at the helm of the dengue control measures in the barangay (villages) observed that although residents are fully aware of the prevention activities, many households are still not cooperating in the implementation of the same.
He ordered the involvement of the Baguio City Police Office personnel and the Public Order and Safety Division in the conduct of information dissemination, case surveillance and geotagging operations in the barangay as augmentation to the sanitation division personnel.
'It seems that the gravity of the situation has not fully sunk into the consciousness of many people so that they continue to be uncooperative and refuse to take action to remove the risk factors,' said medical officer Nelson Hora.
Miller Balisongen of the Sanitation Division agreed, saying the city is not wanting on dengue prevention activities but the problem lies on the behavior of the people.
'People are fully aware of the control measures but still they fail to act even if they already had an encounter with the disease. You can observe it, may namatay na nga sa dengue pero mismo sa loob ng bahay nila, nandoon pa rin 'yung mga mosquito breeding sites na ipinagbabawal natin (A victim has already died, and yet inside the house you can see the very breeding ground of mosquitoes is still there),' lamented Balisongen.
He said they will now conduct house-to-house surveillance in the hope of curbing the case trajectory.
Aside from strengthening case surveillance, the CHSO is also implementing 5S anti-dengue public awareness campaign and cleanup drives through the 'Denguerra–War against Dengue' program, an intensified campaign to mobilize the villages to conduct massive and simultaneous search and destroy operations every Thursday to weed out mosquito breeding sites as well as other interventions to stop the reproduction of dengue-carrying mosquitoes and the use of larvicides in critical barangay.
To catch all cases, the city also launched an online system of reporting cases to boost surveillance and capture all cases as part of the CHSO's newly developed monitoring system which, according to Panes, integrates data gathering from health laboratories and citizen self-reporting.