San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora bared on Monday, Aug. 15, the city's efforts in combating dengue as the country is seeing an increase in dengue cases.
Zamora laid out his city's programs against dengue in an interview with ANC even as he said that San Juan tallied the lowest number of dengue cases in Metro Manila, based on the data of the Department of Health (DOH).
Since January this year, San Juan City has recorded 83 dengue cases and zero active cases as of Aug. 12. The mayor added there were no dengue-related deaths in the city since January 2021, a record that he hopes to maintain.
"We have a constant clean-up drive especially in relation to stagnant water. We have regular larvae trapping and regular misting. All of these are being undertaken by our City Health Office (CHO) and so far, it has done good for the city of San Juan," Zamora said.
He added that the city government is also putting up additional pumping stations specifically in the F. Manalo area which is parallel to the San Juan River.
Aside from this, the city government is also making sure that all waterways and drainage are clean, ensuring the continuous flow of water which prevents stagnant water which is the favorite breeding ground of dengue disease -carrying mosquitoes.
Zamora said they are also upgrading culverts to make them bigger because smaller culverts cannot handle water in case of strong rains or floods.
He called upon his constituents to exercise discipline in disposing their trash to prevent flooding and the proliferation of dengue disease-carrying mosquitoes.
"Last two weeks, we experienced heavy rains and immediately after, when I had our engineering department check on the drainage, there were a lot of garbage blocking the water flow. So people will have to be very disciplined. We have to understand that we have to do our own share in terms of ensuring all our water systems and drainage are clean," the mayor explained.
On Monday, Zamora led the misting and clean-up drive in Barangay Corazon de Jesus.
The DOH had earlier said that dengue cases in the Philippines reached more than 90,000 from January to July this year.
Some 92,343 dengue cases were recorded from Jan. 1 to July 23.
“Cumulatively, cases this year are 118 percent higher compared to the 42,294 cases reported during the same period in 2021,” the DOH said.
Three regions were identified by the agency as having the most number of dengue cases. These are Central Luzon, with 5,186; National Capital Region (NCR), with 2,374; and Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon), with 2,178.
It also noted that nine out of 17 regions exceeded the epidemic threshold, with Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan) and the National Capital Region showing a sustained increasing trend.