4 children die from dehydration in Maguindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Four children in Rajah Buayan town in Maguindanao died from dehydration while 30 others were hospitalized after contracting dysentery, health officials said Tuesday.

The health department of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) announced that the dysentery outbreak has affected villagers in Raja Buayan’s adjoining towns Mileb, Sapakan, Bakat and Pedsandwan.

The dysentery cases in Rajah Buayan were first reported by barangay officials over the weekend.

Wahida Kanacan, mother of one of the four fatalities, said her daughter complained of painful abdominal spasm before experiencing severe loose bowel movement.

Kanacan said her daughter died on Monday, a day after she was confined and given intravenous rehydration fluids by attending medical practitioners.

Local health workers said most of the patients reside in villages whose residents fetch drinking water from artesian walls surrounded by swamps and open wells.

Health workers are now attending to the needs of the patients in Rajah Buayan, a component town of the ARMM.

The ARMM’s health department said epidemiologists were still trying to determine if the patients in Rajah Buayan have also been afflicted with cholera.

An old woman and a three-year-old child earlier died from Cholera while more than 40 others were also hospitalized in an outbreak early this month in Bongo island in Parang town in the first district of Maguindanao.