MAYOR Honey Lacuna enjoined the support of the 896 barangays in the city of Manila to make this week’s ‘Cleanup Day’ more thorough and turn it into an avenue for drumming up awareness in the communities on the need to keep their surroundings clean in view of the rising number of dengue cases in the country.
It will be recalled that on her first week as the new Manila Mayor, Lacuna issued an Executive Order declaring every Friday of the month as ‘Cleanup Day.’ The order covers not only the Manila City Hall but also barangays, health centers, police stations and markets, among others.
The directive aims to keep the surroundings clean at all times, in the belief that cleanliness reflects one’s character, attitude and quality of service that one is capable of dispensing.
The EO, Lacuna notes, is very timely since dengue-carrying mosquitoes usually breed in dirty places. Lacuna added that with the onset of the rainy season, there is also an expected rise in breeding areas for such mosquitoes thus, the need to continuously clean at least within our own vicinities.
“With the threat of what health authorities described as an ‘alarming’ rate of growth of dengue cases recently, the cleanup day should in fact be observed daily and voluntarily for one’s own sake,” said Lacuna, who happens to be a doctor.
Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire the Department of Health (DOH) said on Tuesday that 15 out of 17 regions in the country have already surpassed the epidemic threshold for dengue, breaching the expected number of infections based on past trends or figures in the previous years during the same period.
Based on the National Dengue Data from the DOH, a total of 64,797 dengue cases have been recorded in the country from January 1 to June 25, 2022 only, 90 percent higher than the 34,074 dengue cases for the same period last year.
The DOH also reported 274 deaths, broken down as follows: January, 36; February, 32; March, 39; April, 46; May, 63 and June, 58. (Baby Cuevas)
