For fear of dengue
We have limited our son’s mall tours and other outdoor activities because of dengue. I may itch to take him to the newly refurbished playground at Quezon City Memorial Circle with its many facilities and fake grass but fear of dengue always outweighs the thrill of fleeting playground pleasures.
We are also loading up on jogging pants – my son’s official, all occasion wardrobe for now especially when going outdoors. In the time of dengue, fashion should be more functional and protective than aesthetic. I know “full battle gear” restricts movement making playtime uncomfortable but one can’t take risks. I’d rather see him sweaty and fully wrapped than sick. Dengue mosquitoes lurk everywhere, hence the need to cover up.
Dengue mosquitoes are sort of terrorists. They impede normal life and this dengue scare limits our movements because we fear the death it brings. There’s always a friend, or a friend of a friend who lost loved ones to dengue fever, which is now every parent’s nightmare. We pray that it never happens to our family as we cringe at the thought that our children can be most vulnerable anywhere. My sister who lives in Pavia Iloilo, has even restricted her son’s “movements” to home and school only. She is twice as cautious as Iloilo province has declared a state of calamity on account of rising dengue cases with alarming deaths.
We have been told time and again to maintain clean surroundings and destroy breeding grounds of mosquitoes in our homes. But schools, malls, churches and parks where we take our kids to, may not be as conscientious as we are with dengue-proofing. So, beyond our gates we worry.
With dengue cases now spreading across the country and affecting everyone regardless of location or economic status, we worry more. Dengue has claimed lives whether in Metro Manila or Western Visayas or Central Mindanao. For this year alone close to 500 have died from dengue while the death toll could still rise. Usually the very young, the very old and the very sick are most vulnerable.
Forecasts for dengue in the Philippines remain grim. By year end, there would be 80,000 dengue cases this year, projects the Health Department, based on the speed and rate the cases are spreading. It has already reached more than 54,000 mid-August and according to National Epidemiology Center’s Dr. Eric Tayag, 2010 holds the highest number of Dengue cases.
One would think the prolonged dry spell would have killed mosquito breeding grounds?
“But the water shortage due to the El Niño just led people to stock up on water in their homes and dengue mosquitoes thrive in clean stagnant waters,” Tayag said.
Dengue is a problem shared by most tropical countries. It is a potent a killer in Argentina, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Pakistan, Northern Australia, Western Saudi Arabia and even China, as it is in the Philippines.
The difference lies on how countries and governments deal with the dengue menace.
Singapore for instance, has made headway by dramatically reducing dengue incidence in its territory. This, through stiffer sanitation laws and imposing accountability and even penalties to households or establishments considered breeding grounds of the deadly dengue mosquitoes.
“Dengue cases are traced and mapped by the government while a public warning system is in place,” Tayag said. “In some cases, residences or establishments where dengue mosquitoes were found are fined,” he added.
Slapping hefty fines on establishments caught with unsanitary practices will be met with protests in the Philippines and I’m pretty sure “shaming” residents or households where dengue cases have been traced, constitutes violation of human rights which this nation decries at the slightest form of embarrassment or inconvenience. Such is a reality in a country lacking in political will or public cooperation.
But Singapore really has a point. In times when health is threatened and the general well-being of countrymen rely on how responsible a citizenry we are, there has to be more accountability from everyone. Cleaning up must be a national obligation.
For now, the Philippines’ anti-dengue campaign remains “invitational” to communities where clean-up efforts are treated more as a government service rather than a mandatory undertaking for the good of everyone.
While we largely consider ourselves victims of dengue, have we ever thought that many of us are also terrorists for keeping “weapons of mass destruction” in vases, canals, cans, repositories or the used tires that we keep among the other junk we have in the house?
If you own any of these mosquito breeding grounds and someone in your neighborhood died of dengue? You could have been the killer.*
