ANGELES CITY- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the World Heatlh Organization (WHO) has chosen this city as venue for this year’s Dengue Day on June 15, amid reports of significant drop in local dengue cases that could serve as a blueprint for an international anti-dengue campaign.
The Department of Health (DOH) regional office said this year’s Dengue Day theme is “Unity and Harmony within the ASEAN Community: Key in the Fight against Dengue.” Dr. Christine Joy Patio of the city health office here said delegates from various Asean countries are expected to attend Dengue Day events which will last two days from June 14 to 15.
She said ASEAN organizers chose Angeles as this year’s Dengue Day venue because of the significant decline of dengue cases here in the recent years, as she noted about 60 percent dive in the local cases of the mosquito-borne ailment from 2012 to 2013.
Statistics showed 1,170 dengue cases in this city in 2012, and only 639 cases in 2013. ASEAN Dengue Day is an advocacy event held every June 15 to increase public awareness of dengue, to mobilize resources for its prevention and control, and to demonstrate the region’s commitment to tackling the disease.
The advocacy event was agreed upon during the 10th ASEAN Health Ministers Meeting in 2010. The first regional event was held in 2011 in Jakarta, Indonesia, while Myanmar hosted the regional celebration in Yangon in 2012.
Last year’s Dengue Day was hosted by Hanoi, Vietnam. Dr. Rhoda Cruz, chief of the DOH regional office’s dengue monitoring group, said the foreign and local participants in the two-day annual event will visit local barangays to observe anti-dengue projects of the Angeles city health office.
Patio attributed the signifi cant decline in dengue cases to intensive campaign against the Aedes Aegypti mosquitor carriers of the disease, particularly in schools and business establishments. “Not only health workers, but also civic organizations in the city are involved,” she said.
She said the anti-dengue campaign pushing what the DOH calls “the 4 o’clock habit,” starts in May through the rainy season where breeding places of mosquito carriers normally abound. ASEAN has reported an increasing number of dengue cases from 2012 to 2013.
Le Luong Minh, Secretary-General of ASEAN, said “dengue represents a significant economic burden on our region and hinders our development goals. The importance in addressing dengue at the regional level involving various stakeholders in a proactive and collective response cannot be overemphasized.”
ASEAN also said that “dengue is one of the fastest growing emerging infectious diseases in the world, and the Asia Pacific hosts 75 percent of the global cases. WHO has estimated from 50 to 100 million dengue infections worldwide every year. In the WHO Western Pacific Region, 31 out of 37 countries and areas have reported dengue cases in the past two decades.
The ASEAN members include Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and VietNam.
