Too close
Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2019 17:00:47 +0000
UNTIL it happens to your neighbor, or someone you know, dengue is nothing more than an outbreak happening in some distant place not your own.
But when the mosquito bites your neighbor next door, alarm bells ring – it can only mean the dengue mosquito is flying close by. That was what struck me, not the spike in dengue cases all over the country – 23,000 in Region 6 with 111 deaths; understaffed hospitals; IV supplies running out; from 72 cases last year to 452 in January-July this year in Kidapawan City, etc. – but if someone living next door gets bitten, I could be next!
Headline-worthy reports are stories told from far away, and the accompanying figures are just numbers. What got me truly and really scared was when my nephew and neighbor told me that he had been bitten twice – “I am paranoid!” – and that two waiters working nearby were undergoing treatment. The news was too close for comfort. Suddenly I found myself paying attention to every tip messaged by Tony: Spray the house, inside and out, upstairs, front and back; once you let the sprayers in, everything exposed must be washed or wiped clean – beddings, plates, bowls, cups, glasses, toothbrushes, combs, towels; keep pets and food out of sight; buy a mosquito zapper to zap those bloodthirsty insects dead before they so much as smell the color of your skin.
Unlike cleaning up the yard, throwing out stagnant water in drums, ponds, cans, it costs a bit to spray every nook and cranny and invest in a trap to catch those pesky, deadly insects. The only “good” news is that dengue tends to spike every three years, which is why in 2016, 2017, and 2018, the incidence was much lower.
A traditional cure is the tawa-tawa leaf, which grows wild and abundant, even in unlikely places like Alabang’s millionaires’ row. This “folkloric” remedy has been encapsulated into green capsules (450 mg) as Tawa2 Plus. Labeled as “traditionally used to relieve the symptoms of asthma,” it has been used for malaria and dengue patients, with encouraging results. Problem is, and it’s no laughing matter, it’s available only in South Star and Generika drugstores; even then, supplies are not always ample.