ILOILO City – The number of students suspected to have been afflicted with hepatitis at the Don Esteban Javellana Memorial National High School in Barangay Guiso, Calinog, Iloilo has risen to 77.
Laboratory tests of the students’ blood samples showed 46 of these cases to be positive of Hepatitis A, according to Provincial Health Office (PHO) chief Dr. Patricia Grace Trabado.
On Aug. 10, initially 25 students of the school (from grades 7 to 12) fell ill and exhibited Hepatitis A symptoms such as fever, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, and jaundice. School authorities deemed it wise to have them checked at the Municipal Health Office.
Yesterday, the Department of Health Region 6 sent a team to the school to gather more information, said Trabado.
“It’s important to establish where these cases first started and how it spread,” she explained.
A food handler at the school canteen was also found to be positive of Hepatitis A, revealed Trabado, thus the canteen was temporarily closed.
But the PHO has not ruled out the possibility that the students may have contracted the virus, too, from contaminated water.
“We’re still checking the school’s water source,” said Trabado.
Hepatitis A is transmitted from person to person commonly via the consumption of food or drinks contaminated with human waste, said Dr. Cesar Rey Mestidio, municipal health officer.
Any person positive for the hepatitis A virus may serve as a “carrier” that could infect other people, he added./PN
