City supports program vs. meningococcemia

Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the city is willing to cooperate with the medical authorities handling the suspected meningococcemia case.

Although meningococcemia is a serious disease, Osmeña said it is not as serious as bird flu and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that the city has no program for it.

Yet the mayor emphasized he would support any program that medical authorities would undertake in relation to the disease.

"I'll let the medical authorities decide on that. I'm behind them but I don't want to tell them what to do. We have to allow them to make their own decision," he said.

The mayor said his consultant, former City Health Department chief Tomas Fernandez, told him that those who had close contact with the one-year-old child suspected to have been afflicted with meningococcemia should be given antibiotics.

The infant from barangay Quiot was confined early Tuesday at the Saint Vincent Hospital after experiencing high-grade fever and having fine rashes that developed into bruise-like patches, which are among the symptoms of meningococcemia, an acute infection caused by the bacteria called Neisseria Meningitides.

The results of the preliminary tests on the child's blood samples showed no signs of Neisseria Meningitides bacteria, according to Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit nurse Reynan Cimafranca.

Cimafranca, however, said they would still have to wait for five days to see if the bacteria are present in the blood of the infant.

Cimafranca and other members of RESU have already conducted contact tracing among relatives and neighbors of the victim but none of them has been reported sick the past two weeks. - Cristina C. Birondo