As early as January, the Department of Health started its campaign on Dengue awareness which, according to them, dengue is now a continuous illness, contrary to the past where it followed a pattern.
"Dengue", a Swahali term for "bad air" was first known in the world as "Philippine Hemorrhagic Fever" when the first epidemic of dengue was recorded in the Philippines. Later on, the health authority applied the word dengue to the illness when they found out that it is not only endemic to the Philippines, but in other parts of the world as well, especially in tropical and humid places.
The early launching on dengue awareness was aimed to reduce the morbidity and mortality due to dengue and to increase the awareness of the community in combating dengue to totally eradicate and stop the transmittal of the disease to humans.
The month of June is declared as National Dengue Awareness Month to battle the spread of dengue in the community. The campaign will go down from the national government to the local government, and the community.
As of the moment, there is no vaccine for dengue and the most important thing everyone should to do is to control the spread of dengue virus by means of cleaning their surroundings and searching for possible breeding grounds of mosquitoes.
A mosquito that carries dengue virus is different from mosquitoes that carry the malaria virus which attack or bite people who are inactive and mostly bite during nighttime. Mosquitoes that carry the dengue virus are those bite active people mostly during early morning and late afternoon.
The Mosquito
A larva mosquito is mostly a bottom feeder, it swim and glides, and breathes through a terminal structure called a siphon; would favorably survive at 16-24 C; does not mature at 12 and 39C and rest at an angle to the water surface.
An adult mosquito bites through the day, two hours after sunrise and two hours before sundown; they actively bite at 26C temperature an largely bite at 26 to 35C. They favor low moisture and warmer skin. They are more attractive to moving and active persons, that is why, most of its victims are children.
In their act of feeding, they approach from behind and not by frontal attack. If the first attempt fails, they will attack from a different quarter. They prefer dark corners, shades, dark objects, hanging objects or materials; settle on sides away from light, and do not normally rest on wall surfaces.
A Dengue-carrying mosquito normally flies upwind towards the light and attacks victims from 50-300 meters from breeding sites.
People must also know that it is only the female mosquitoes that bite because blood is a necessary component for female mosquitoes during incubation period. Once a female mosquito becomes fertile, she is fertile for her entire life. A male mosquito does not bite, it only zips and gets it food from fruits and plants nectar. The female mosquito's life expectancy stays up to 30 days, while the male mosquito stays fro 21 days.
During the oviposition, the adult female mosquito may lay 60 to 100 eggs. It prefers dark background containers and from two o'clock to six o'clock, is the peak of their oviposition. In two weeks, about fifty of the one hundred eggs become female. If these female mosquitoes are fed with infected blood on their first blood meal, they can transmit the virus to at least 350 people if they live for 20 days after becoming infected.
The Process in Acquiring Dengue Virus
Typically, mosquitoes at first, do not carry dengue virus. In the process of mating of mosquitoes called swarming the male and female mosquitoes will only mate once. After they mate, the female mosquito will produce eggs which will take 10 to 12 days in complete cycle, to become mature.
Once the female mosquito reaches adulthood, it will start to bite. For her to acquire dengue virus, the female mosquito must first bite a person who is a dengue virus, it will take ten days, before it can spread the virus. In 30 days of its life, the female mosquito will bite eight to ten times, which is equivalent to eight to ten victims.
Dengue Signs and Symptoms
There are certain signs and symptoms a person will feel once one acquired the dengue virus, these may include, high continuous fever lasting for two to seven days, nausea or vomiting, abdominal pain, body weakness, bleeding tendency from nose and gums, persistent red spots on the face, extremities and trunks.
Dengue Danger Sign
Spontaneous bleeding
Persistent vomiting
Cold, clamming skin
Restlessness, Weak rapid pulse and
Difficulty in breathing
Once a person feels the above mentioned signs and symptoms, he must immediately consult the doctor for proper prescription of medication and for monitoring of his health condition. There is still no vaccine for dengue virus, so the better thing to do is to ask and consult a doctor, is what a person should do once one acquires the dengue virus.
How to Control Dengue
If against the larvae, here are some tips that we can do to control them
Applying larvicides to the breeding site.
Source reduction (dispose useless containers, thorough cleaning of domestic water container, puncture or bore holes on used tires and clean clogged gutters)
Biological contorl (use of larvivorous fish)
For adult mosquitoes.
Modify and manipulate environment.
Turn water containers upside down.
Fill-up tree holes and bamboo stumps.
Proper container management.
Eradicate breeding sites.
Space spraying or fogging should be done in proper application, with right chemical dosage, right techniques and right timing. Fogging or spraying must be done by a pesticide applicator and should be done in a minimal foliage.
One the recent directive of the DOH fogging is strictly prohibited and they appeal to the local government units to stop asking the DOH to conduct fogging for dengue control. This is becuase fogging is too expensive (from the machine that they use, chemical and labor) and may also raise environmental issues.
Fogging accoding to the DOH, must be done during epidemic at least four times at weekly interval. When conducting fogging, it should be in right dosage, and must use a water-based fogging device in view to the Clean Air-Act.
Proper health education, promotion and community participation must be done in combating dengue. Evryone must have correct knwoledge and information on what to do so that they can contribute in stopiing the spread of dengue in their community.
There must be an advator for health education especially to those who are still not aware of the virus and on what to do once there is a case of dengue and prior to cases of dengue and proper sanitation.
The community, especially the health officials, must conduct surveillance on places where there are dengue cases to stop an epidemic and most especially the local government. The barangay and municipal concils must pass an ordinace as guideline for thier community members on dengue prevention, which may include or impose sanctions or penalties for those who will not follow.
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