Labella wants DOH to expedite study on treatment for dengue

Councilor Edgardo Labella wants the Department of Health with the assistance of the National Integrated Research Program on Medicinal Plants as well as the Research Institute for Tropical Medicines to expedite the process of finding an affordable cure for dengue hemorrhagic fever.

In his proposed resolution, Labella said that dengue is a “clear and present threat to public health” affecting major cities in the country including Cebu City where close to 300 cases of dengue with 11 deaths were reported for the first two months of the year.

“While we laud the DOH-initiated anti-dengue campaign, it would do well if equal attention would be given by the concerned government agencies to the search for appropriate medicines to cure patients afflicted with the deadly dengue,” the resolution reads.

Labella cited the common weed “mangagaw”, which reportedly possesses curative properties, as a good starting point in the experiment to discover antidotes to dengue.

“Using mangagaw and other similar herbal plants as subject of experimental projects would tend to be a win-win solution since it would once and for all provide scientific explanation if the said herbal plant possesses bioactive ingredients which could be used as component in the cure against dengue, and debunk its healing property myth if experimental projects yield negative results,” he added.

The councilor said that there is need to go deeper into the search for affordable cure against dengue in the wake of reports that the ailment has metamorphosed from a seasonal threat to a year-round health scourge especially for children in the one-to-nine-years-old bracket.

Earlier, DOH Undersecretary Jade del Mundo announced that the department has now started a program to discover medicines for dengue.

“As we all know, there is no medicine and vaccines against dengue, but the DOH has started a program to discover medicines from plants like tawa-tawa (mangagaw), carica papaya, and other herbal plants,” he said.

According to him, the RITM is working on experimental projects in the production of vaccines against dengue and finding an affordable cure to it.

Del Mundo said that efforts to find a cure to dengue have been accelerated globally. In Thailand for example, he said, they are now in the experimental stage in producing dengue vaccines.

Here in the country, there have been many reports that herbal plants like tawa-tawa and papaya leaf juice help dengue patients recover. Papaya leaf juice reportedly helps increase platelet level, while tawa-tawa is believed to have anti-viral and anti-bacterial components that can help cure even stage four of dengue.

But while waiting for the results of these studies, DOH launched a nationwide campaign against dengue through intensified information dissemination especially in the barangay level to reduce its impact.

Del Mundo reiterated that the most effective way to prevent dengue is still the cleaning up of surroundings, eliminating all possible breeding sites of the Aedes aegypti mosquito like clean stagnant water.  — Wenna A. Berondo/MEEV