BAGUIO CITY – The City Health Services Office has recorded almost 3,000 cases of acute gastroenteritis here.
It has received 2,915 cases as of 2:20 p.m. on January 12 and 652 patients sought consultation in health facilities with 65.2 percent still symptomatic.
Majority or 62.1 percent of patients dined in a food establishment, 13.2 percent ordered take-out food, 12.9 percent ate home-cooked meals, and 11.9 percent had other circumstances.
Three-hundred ten patients were from outside this city, 204 from neighboring towns, 135 each from Camp 7 and Barangay Irisan, 132 from Bakakeng Norte, 101 from unspecified locations, and the rest from different barangays.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong said they are now fast-tracking the investigation of the acute gastroenteritis outbreak even as latest figures suggested a downtrend in the number of cases as of January 12.
The CHSO said that from 508 cases on January 8, only 64 new cases were listed on January 11, which can be considered a “steep decrease.”
Magalong said this meant that the containment and preventive measures they employed had worked and because of this, they can now focus more on the investigation aspect.
He said the city has tapped available manpower and resources from partner government agencies, including the Epidemiology Bureau through Undersecretary and Public Health Services Center lead Dr. Eric Tayag, to speed up data collection and testing of water samples to determine the cause and source of the contamination.
Safeguards were also adopted against shortage in medicines and bottled water due to increased demand.
Price and supply monitoring of bottled water were intensified through the Department of Trade and Industry Baguio-Benguet while medicine supply was augmented through the help of the Department of Health, Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center, and donations by private companies like SM City Baguio.
Mass testing of water samples from suspected sources continue to be fast-tracked.
The Sanitation Division of the CHSO. with the assistance of Baguio City Police Office, is spearheading the testing of water sources of affected establishments and households.
“We have to speed up the investigation, test as many as we can, and get results as soon as possible. From the data, we have to identify the common denominator among the incidents to get to the bottom of the problem, identify the cause and source of the contamination, and address this health problem,” Magalong said.
Two-hundred eighteen establishments and 80 households were initially affected.
As preventive measure, the city government advised food establishments to refrain from serving tap or filtered water and instead use purified water for food preparations and customer consumption.
Households were also urged to do the same or boil their tap water for six minutes.
Meanwhile, the CHSO said 18 water samples tested positive for total coliform and eight for E.coli bacteria out of those taken from 62 establishments, households, and institutions here.
A sample from a food establishment also tested positive for bacterial contamination.
City Health Officer Dr. Celia Flor Brillantes said of the 18 water samples, 12 were from water delivery firms, four were from food establishments, one residential, and one school.
These food establishments and residence also tested positive for E.coli along with five water delivery companies.
Brillantes said that the findings affirmed that the outbreak was indeed caused by contaminated water. Results, however, remain inconclusive on the source of contamination.
She said investigation and water tests will continue over the weekend to determine the root cause.
The Baguio Water District tested its deep wells and rainwater harvesting facilities.
As of January 10, the BWD tested 15 of deep wells that yielded negative for coliform in rapid tests.
Brillantes said 10 samples gathered on January 12 from BWD sources all over here have been sent to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine for intensive tests while another set will be subjected to testing in a local laboratory.