Cebu City health office intensifies anti-dengue measures
By Amorganda A. Saluda
CEBU CITY Aug 14 (PIA) -- The Cebu City Health Department (CCHD) continues to strengthen its defense measures against dengue amid the rainy season where cases are likely to spread despite a significant decline of dengue cases in July compared to the previous month.
Durinda Macasocol, assistant city epidemiologist of the City Epidemiology Surveillance and Statistics Unit of the CCHD said they do not want to be complacent just because cases of dengue went down last month by slightly over 50 percent from 388 cases in June to 195 cases in July.
“Each barangay in the city have their own barangay dengue brigade intended to initiate immediate measures and actions in the continuing anti-dengue campaign drive,” said Macasocol. There are 80 barangays in Cebu City.
Barangay health workers together with the CCHD continue its ongoing house-to-house education and information campaign to educate residents to make it a habit of maintaining clean surroundings and destroy possible breeding sites of mosquitoes, Macasocol said.
Since the start of this year, the city health team in coordination with the local barangay officials, barangay health emergency response teams, dengue barangay brigade and other non-government organizations regularly conduct search and destroy operations for the breeding sites of mosquitoes and other insects that carries not only dengue fever.
The assistant city epidemiologist further said they emphasize the importance of early consultation when on-and-off fever is noted and of immediate admission to the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) for confirmed & severe stage of the disease to prevent unnecessary deaths.
A fast lane for dengue consultation has also been established at the CCMC’s out-patient department to easily address dengue cases, while there is also a dengue ward with available supplies and medicines.
There are also seven satellite laboratories all over the city for free complete blood count, platelet counting and monitoring for those with recurring fever suspected to be dengue.
The laboratories complement the main lab at the CCHD and at the CCMC while the latter provides free hospitalization to city residents with suspected and confirmed dengue virus, Macasocol disclosed.
Last June 3, the city’s sanitary inspectors partnered with the Rotary Philippines in the conduct of larviciding activity in the identified stagnant pools of water in 20 city barangays.
Intensified campaign for proper waste disposal and regular collection of garbage as well as de-clogging activities were likewise conducted. These would be a huge help to eliminate possible breeding sites of mosquitoes and to ensure that canals in the city are freely flowing thereby lessening the possibility of stagnant water that may also serve as breeding sites for mosquitoes.
At present, the main focus of the city health department is to the raise the level of dengue prevention measures which has been effective with the decline of dengue cases last month, Macasocol said.
"But this is no reason to let up in our campaign and we are still raising the alert status because dengue cases are usually high during the rainy months. We are focusing much on prevention to prevent unnecessary deaths,” Macasocol added.
Macasocol said given the situation, the City Epidemiology Statistics and Surveillance Unit of Cebu through the CCHD and the CCMC continuously provides active, daily and on-going Fever SMS Surveillance covering the 80 barangays of the city. (FCR/AYS-PIA7, Cebu)
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RAFI taps youths to promote Cebu as culture, heritage site
CEBU CITY, Aug 14 (PIA) -- A non-government organization here led the campaign in promoting Cebu as a cultural and heritage destination as it partnered with the academe to tap, prepare and strengthen youth volunteers of the Kabataan, Kultura ug Kabilin (KKK) in the promotional drive.
The Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI) Culture & Heritage established a partnership with the University of San Carlos Department of Anthropology, Sociology and History (USC-DASH), in creating a team building activity for the youth volunteers of the KKK on July 28-29 at the Casa Gorordo Museum and USC Retreat House.
KKK is a program of RAFI Culture & Heritage, aims to provide opportunity for the youths to connect their lectures in their history, culture, and social studies classes by visiting museums and heritage sites of the city. The youth volunteers will act as tour guides and bus marshals.
The organized two-day activity focused on strengthening the leadership skills, such as communication, trust, decision-making, collaboration, teamwork and goal setting of the youths in order to prepare these volunteers for the fourth run of the KKK in September this year.
Held on the first day was an urban heritage backpacking challenge, facilitated by the faculty of USC-DASH, participants walked around Cebu City to search for their pit stops, which are sites that have historical and heritage significance to the city.
Volunteers were asked to complete a challenge in every pit stops in order to test the teamwork, map-reading skills and social skills. These pit stops included Calamba cemetery, the Tres de Abril marker, San Nicholas Parish Church, Vision Theatre, Old VECO Building, Cebu Heritage Monument and Casa Gorordo Museum.
The second day of the event marked the participation of the volunteers in several initiative games and other activities that created a fun learning environment that is conducive for personal growth and interaction among the participants. These activity held at the USC Retreat House was conducted by the Kool Adventure Camp (KAC) of RAFI.
“The program is a way of RAFI to support young leaders to have a better appreciation of Cebu City’s heritage. Through this, we hope to open the minds of our young people to the greatness of our past and in the process, appreciate and use it for a better Philippines,” Dr. Jocelyn Gerra, executive director of RAFI Culture & Heritage said.
Last year, around 1,700 youth participated in the KKK and were able to visit nine museums and heritage sites.
One of RAFI’s focus areas, culture & heritage, aims to help communities understand, value and share their cultural identity with others. The other four are Integrated Development, Micro-finance & Entrepreneurship, Leadership & Citizenship, and Education.
Major partners of RAFI in this advocacy are the DASH and the Cebu City government.
For more information on the urban heritage backpacking challenge and the KKK, please contact 418-7234 loc. 703 and look for Karl Hegel Damayo. (FCR-PIA7 Cebu with RAFI - PR)