Critical period of acute diarrhea outbreak in Baguio City over, says health officials

Baguio City health officials has declared that the critical period of the diarrhea is over and that the focus has shifted to identifying the cause and source of the illness, according to the Baguio City Public Information Office.

City Health Officer Celia Flor Brillantes, in a report addressed to Mayor Benjamin Magalong, said that "the downward trend of the epidemic curve was sustained as the number of new cases continued to dwindle beginning last Jan. 9."

The cases are down from 520 last January 8 to 14 cases, as of January 14, 2024. No fatalities were recorded and majority of the patients have either recovered or are on their way to recovery.

Magalong, in a press briefing on Sunday, said that investigation and clinical tests will continue "to ascertain the cause and source of the infection and only then can they say that the outbreak has ended."

"Looking at the trend and the developments, we can say that we are getting there," he was quoted as saying.

The information office said that health authorities reported that "virology tests conducted by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) on stool specimens collected from ten hospital patients yielded positive results for either norovirus and sapovirus."

However, City Health Services Office (CHSO) and the Department of Health Epidemiology Bureau officials said more tests have to be done.

"The CHSO's public health laboratory conducted microbial analyses of 64 samples from water sources and found ten that were positive for E.coli bacteria while the Baguio Water District which also conducted water sampling of its water sources reported that all of the 83 samples gathered from its deep wells tested negative for the bacteria."

Meanwhile, Baguio City health officials are set to impose "precautionary measures" that include frequent handwashing and other minimum public health standards adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic apart from consuming only purified or boiled water.

Dr. Ian Christian Gonzales of the DOH Epidemiology Bureau advised the public to observe the following practices:

• Use treated (chlorinated, purified or distilled) for both drinking and cooking
• Practice good hand hygiene by washing hands before and after eating, using the toilet or when caring for the sick
• When caring for the sick, be careful in cleaning up fecal materials, vomit and make sure to disinfect contaminated surfaces using common disinfectants
• If feeling sick and still having symptoms, rest and stay at home and avoid preparing food to prevent infecting others.

Mayor Magalong has declared an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis in Baguio City, as cases soared to over a thousand last January 11, 2024. —BAP, GMA Integrated News