ILOILO City – Dengue hemorrhagic fever claimed three more lives in Western Visayas during Morbidity Week 22 or between May 29 and June 4. This brought the total deaths in the region to 23.
The three new deaths were logged in Aklan, Antique and Negros Occidental, data from the Department of Health (DOH) 6 showed.
Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral infection causing a severe flu-like illness that could sometimes be fatal. Its carriers are day-biting mosquitoes (Aedes albpictus and Aedes aegypti) that live and breed and clean, stagnant water.
DOH-6 monitored 136 barangays with clustering of dengue cases from May 8 to June 4.
Sixty six of these were from Negros Occidental, 39 from Antique, 12 from Bacolod City, 10 from Iloilo province, four from Capiz, three from Iloilo City, and one each from Guimaras and Aklan.
There is clustering if there are at least three cases within four consecutive weeks.
For Morbidity Week 22 also, 354 additional dengue cases were recorded in the region.
These were from Aklan (nine), Antique (93), Capiz (22), Guimaras (two), Iloilo province (53), Negros Occidental (143), Bacolod City (23), and Iloilo City (nine).
With this, there are a total of 2,520 cases of dengue in region 6 since January 1 to June 4 this year./PN
