Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya – The provincial government yesterday expressed alarm over the reported outbreak of typhoid fever in a remote village here with more than 22 families reportedly already suffering from the disease.
As of yesterday reports from the provincial health office here indicated that at least 80 individuals have already been affected by the said illness since Jan. 21 in sitio Logpon alone, which is part of barangay Kongkong in indigenous people-dominated mountain town of Kasibu.
These alarming reports, according to Dr. Edwin Galapon, officer-in-charge of the provincial health office, had prompted the provincial government led by Gov. Luisa Lloren-Cuaresma to immediately dispatch a team of health experts to conduct operations in the affected area to prevent the further spread of the disease.
“For now, we have been able to prevent what could have been an epidemic situation in the area through our immediate response,” Galapon said.
Reports showed that at least 30 typhoid fever-affected persons, both adults and children, have already been confined at the Kasibu District Hospital and the Nueva Vizcaya provincial hospital in Bambang town since the start of the outbreak earlier this week.
Galapon, however, admitted that a big number of patients in the place still have to receive any form of medical treatment due to their remoteness from the nearest rural health unit. This, he said, may become a factor in the further spread of the water-borne disease in the nearby villages if they remain unchecked.
Health experts said that typhoid fever, also known as enteric fever, is commonly transmitted through ingestion of food or water contaminated with feces from an infected person. The bacteria then multiply through the blood stream and are absorbed into the digestive tract.
A person infected with typhoid fever, an illness caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar typhi, normally suffers sustained high fever, profuse sweating, gastroenteritis and diarrhea and rashes.