Buraga, Coleen Christine Jane P.

January 16, 2017

MT 206
In our barangay, dengue fever has been the prominent disease. Dengue fever is
an infectious disease carried by mosquitoes and caused by any four related dengue
viruses. Dengue fever is quite a fatal disease and unfortunately has no specific
treatment.
This mosquito carries a virus which attacks the white blood cells in blood stream.
Severe headaches, pain in the muscles and joints and rashes or red spots are among
the symptoms of dengue fever. Some patients experience gastritis, diarrhea, nausea,
vomiting and abdominal pain. This disease starts suddenly with high fever, headache
and pain in muscles and joints. Then red spots or a rash usually comes 3-4 days after
the fever has begun. Sometimes, symptoms are mild and can be mistaken as a flu or
another viral infection. Several researches said that younger children and people who
have never had the infection before tend to have milder cases than older children and
adults. However, serious problems may develop. These include dengue hemorrhagic
fever, damage to blood vessels, enlargement of the liver and failure of the circulatory
system. The symptoms may develop to tremendous bleeding, shock and death.
Numerous studies regarding this have shown that several factors are contributing
to the outbreak of dengue fever such as socio-economic and global warming. Global
warming is said to be the major contributor of dengue fever. Global warming can cause
dryness in some country and can increase rainfall and humidity in others. At one hand,
dry season reduce bodies of water like springs or ponds to small puddle which are said
to be a potential breeding grounds of mosquitoes. On the other hand, increased rainfall
and humidity also leads to collection of water that is possible to be the breeding ground
of mosquitoes.
Floods and droughts are two extreme weather events triggered by global
warming. These two weather events increases the outbreak of infectious disease
particularly dengue fever. Drought heavy, rains, and flood create breeding ground for
mosquitoes carrying the virus. Furthermore, dengue mosquito can grow in clean water.
Carelessness of the people carries out an environment to dengue mosquito to grow
even in clean areas. The water of streets and other places increase the chances of
spreading dengue. Many preventative measures must be taken to fight the dengue
virus, since there is no vaccine available for the virus.
Every community must establish educational programs to educate the people
about the importance of disposing possible breeding places such as water tanks,
unused bottles, containers and probably wells. The citizens of these disease-infected
countries are also being made aware of the signs and symptoms of the said disease.
Spraying insecticide can also eradicate mosquitoes to prevent outbreak of the infectious
disease they are carrying. These preventative measures needs to be establish soon
enough to somehow lessen the case of dengue fever since, no one can tell when will
the mosquitoes will attack ,so its better that every person in a community is
knowledgeable about this so called disease.