
Palawan is the only province in the country that is not malaria-free, the Department of Health (DOH) said.
DOH Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said that “80 out of the 81 provinces in the country are all malaria-free” at present.
“Iisa na lang po at yun po ang Palawan (There is only one remaining and that is Palawan),” said Vergeire in a press briefing on Tuesday, Feb. 7.
The criteria for an area to be tagged as malaria fee is “the absence of local transmission of malaria for the past five years,” said Vergeire.
The DOH is currently working with the local government, World Health Organization (WHO), and private sectors such as Pilipinas Shell Foundation to eliminate malaria in Palawan.
Malaria is “a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. It is preventable and curable,” the WHO said.
The WHO said that symptoms “usually appear 10 to 15 days after the infective mosquito bite.”
Some of its symptoms include fever and flu-like illness, including shaking chills, headache, muscle aches, tiredness, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC).