Ifugao town declares state of calamity due to dengue

LAMUT, Ifugao – This town was declared under state of calamity Thursday due to dengue.

              The municipal council passed a resolution, following a letter from Mayor Mariano Buyagawan Jr. urging the legislative body to declare the town under state of calamity over rising dengue cases.

 The request was based on data provided by the municipal health office on the statistics of dengue cases in the town. 

 "The municipality recorded the occurrence of dengue epidemic in the 18 barangays with two fatalities in one of the barangays,” the resolution read. 

 "The data is alarming and showed significant evidence that there is dengue outbreak in the municipality," it added.

 Earlier, Department of Health-Cordillera Administrative Region regional director Dr. Amelita Pangilinan, said Lamut breached alert level in the number of cases.

 She said the DOH-CAR continues to assist Lamut and other areas with high cases.

 Aside from monitoring, the DOH is also active in its information campaign on the 4S, and the regular conduct of clean-up activities to search and destroy mosquito breeding places.

As of August 10, Cordillera recorded 4,704 dengue cases, with nine deaths, Pangilinan said.

 Apayao had 819 cases; Benguet 778 cases with 4 deaths; Abra with 693 cases; Kalinga has 573 cases with one death; Ifugao has 478 cases; Baguio 384 and 1 death; and Mountain Province has 334 cases with one death.

Pangilinan said they are monitoring the Cordillera region and giving special attention to areas where there are clustering of cases including Lamut. 

Cordillera DRRM council chairman and Office of Civil Defense director Albert Mogol said a local government unit that declares its area under state of calamity can access the calamity fund to address a problem.

The calamity fund is 5 percent of the annual budget of the local government, which can be used for preparedness and response.

From the five percent, 30 percent is quick response fund accessible to the local government to address the increasing cases of dengue.

Early this month, the Department of Health had requested the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council to convene a full council meeting, after its declaration of a national dengue epidemic in the wake of the 146,062 cases recorded since January up to July 20 this year, which is 98-percent higher than the same period in 2018. There were 622 deaths. (PNA)