DAGUPAN CITY— A health official inPangasinan advised people to avoid getting frogs for food as these are helpful in the fight against the spread of the dreaded dengue hemorrhagic fever.

Dr. George Calugay, team leader of the Department of Health’s monitoring team in Pangasinan on dengue cases, told local newsmen in a forum the other day here that frogs are natural enemies of mosquitoes and if people get, cook and eat
them, “you are destroying the ecological balance”.

Some Filipinos love eating frogs cooked as either adobo, tinola or deep- fried.

He added that spiders and house lizards are predators of mosquitoes.

Even with already three deaths and 208 cases of dengue fever from January to July across the province, health officials assured that this is still way below the registered number of cases last year.

Dr. Anna de Guzman, assistant provincial health officer, said that dengue cases across the province registered its highest in 2001 with 1,222 confirmed cases with five deaths and in 2005 with 1,051 with eight deaths.

This year, the three casualties were from Alaminos City, Sison and Basista towns.

Dr. Jesus Canto, hospital director of the government-owned Region 1 Medical Center in this city, corroborated de Guzman’s report that indeed admission of patients suspected to have been afflicted of dengue hemorrhagic fever is not alarming compared with last year’s record.

“The basis for an alarm is admission of patients in our hospital because it is where most patients in the province are confined,” Canto said. He said from January to June, there were only 43 admissions and with the heavy rains last month, they have observed only one or two admissions daily due to dengue.

“You don’t only consider the number of patients admitted for a particular disease but also the magnitude in a particular area,” Canto said in declaring an outbreak.

He advised people ”not to be paranoid” when they have fever and conclude hastily it’s dengue but cautioned them to observe proper medication, too. He said people should maintain cleanliness in their surroundings.

De Guzman said there is no basis for the declaration of an outbreak with the present data of patients suspected or confirmed to have been afflicted with dengue.

She added that in 2002, there were 65 cases, in 2003 there were 288 and in 2004 there were 660.

Citing Dr. Ricardo’s Index for the basis of outbreak and epidemic
declaration, she said that one should take the five years average of diseases, take the second to the highest and second to the lowest the add the numbers and divide them by two.

Calugay added that Aedes aegypti, the type of mosquito in the country with white silver spots on its belly that causes dengue when it bites a person, are intelligent mosquitoes because they bite the person’s unexposed body parts. He added that unlike the other types of mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti bite without making a humming sound.