DAGUPAN CITY - Health authorities believe that dengue fever in Pangasinan is now under control as there are now fewer cases being registered this month of September as compared to the cases registered in August and July.

Dr. Anna de Guzman, deputy provincial health officer, said records from Sept. 1 to 11 showed that there were only 59 cases that were registered.

De Guzman also maintained her previous statement that there is no valid reason for them to declare that Pangasinan is under the spill of dengue fever outbreak as there were only 925 with 13 fatalities that were registered since January this year.

Dr. de Guzman said of this number, 386 were suspected cases and 526 others were confirmed cases.

She said there were more cases of dengue that were registered last year at 1,055, yet they did not declare any outbreak.

“For us to declare an outbreak, the number of incidents should have reached around 2,000,” de Guzman said.

Nevertheless, she maintained that dengue is now on a downtrend as gleaned from records for the first two weeks of September, possibly because of lesser rains this month than in August and July.

This was confirmed by Dr. Racquel Magalong, an epidmiologist of the Department of Health regional office based in San Fernando, La Union who said despite the reported number of cases, there is no outbreak of dengue in Pangasinan.

The DOH however noted that the cases in Dagupan and San Carlos cities increased more than the alert threshold, but which was immediately contained through the adoption of appropriate health measures. (PNA)