09 December 2006
LEGAZPI CITY — Health officials urged local government officials to fast-track the provision of potable water and provide sanitary means of garbage disposal in this city and other areas in Albay as these were seen to cause an increasing number of diarrhea cases here.
A total of 20 diarrhea cases in the three barangays of Victory Village, San Roque, and Mauyod—all in Legazpi—were recorded by the Bicol Regional Training and Teaching Hospital on Thursday.
Dr. Ingrid Magnata, assistant regional director of the Department of Health in Bicol, said most of the victims were children aged two and a half to five years old.
Undocumented cases of diarrhea were reported in other villages while cases being monitored by health workers in evacuation centers were being referred to hospitals for confirmation.
Magnata said although there has been no outbreak yet, “what we are seeing is an increasing number of diarrhea cases and we have deployed surveillance teams to look into other diseases with epidemic potentials.”
The DOH set up two water purifiers in Albay for clean and safe water to be distributed by fire trucks to the evacuation centers.
It also asked the public to use chlorine solutions or to boil the water for five to 10 minutes before drinking, and encouraged the public to observe proper waste disposal, hygiene and hand washing.
Water samples from areas with diarrhea cases have been sent to the public health laboratory for analysis.
As of Thursday afternoon, surveillance teams, which were deployed to the 42 evacuation centers in Albay, found that the most common forms of diseases afflicting the evacuees were acute respiratory infection, 235 cases; wounds, 129; fever, 33, and diarrhea, 24.
In Albay province, there were over 4,329 families and 22,307 persons housed in temporary shelters like barangay halls, chapels, relocation sites, day care centers, public schools and private residences.
The DOH has intensified its watch on diseases that could arise like cholera, gastroenteritis, amoebiasis, typhoid, dengue and other food and waterborne diseases, Magnata said.
“We have started immunization and targeted all evacuation centers in the drive. We have isolated cases of contagious diseases and dispatched medicines in the different municipalities,” she added.
A team from the National Center for Mental Health also arrived in the province to cater to the psychosocial needs of traumatized villagers through stress-debriefing sessions.
Tales of survival abound in the province.
At the height of “Reming” on Thursday, a police official said that a 10-month-old boy and his mother survived after their house was buried in a landslide in Barangay Buhatan, 8 km from Sto. Domingo town.
While the baby boy and his mother survived, seven other persons in their household were not as lucky. Ephraim Aguilar and Joanna Los Baños, Inquirer Southern Luzon
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