40 dengue deaths in Central Luzon

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga – The Department of Health in Central Luzon reported yesterday that 40 persons, mostly girls under 15 years of age, have died of mosquito-caused dengue fever in the region this year.

“It’s rather high,” nurse Marilou Pajarillaga of the DOH’s regional epidiomology service unit told The Star.

Latest records have indicated 4,768 dengue cases in Central Luzon so far this year, even as Pajarillaga noted three dengue strains affecting the victims.

Pajarillaga said experts have yet to come out with some explanation on the fact that most of the fatalities are girls below 15 years old.

She cited statistics showing that the deaths this year include four girls within the age bracket one to five years, 12 in the six to 10 bracket, 10 in the 11 to 15 bracket, three each in the 16 to 20 and the 21 to 25 brackets, and two aged more than 25.

This, amid figures showing only two boys in the fatalities under the one to five-year-old bracket, three in the six to 10 bracket, and one in the 11 to 15 bracket. No males above 15 years of age was reported to have died of dengue in the region so far this year.

Pajarillaga said that since January, Pampanga topped the list of the number of dengue cases at 1,838, followed by Bulacan with 1,195, Nueva Ecija with 740, Zambales with 393, Tarlac with 336, Bataan with 247, and Aurora with only 19.        – Ding Cervantes