But in the meantime, you can also help to reduce your exposure to Dengue in your community. Bautista says controlling the amount of cases is a combined effort between the ministry and the public. He explained how you can do your part.
Kim Bautista, Chief of Operations, Vector Control Program
"The thing is that dengue is driven by socioeconomic conditions quite a bit and then compounded with climatic factors that we've been experiencing, first the intense heat and then no intense rainy season and so all of these things factored in with issues such as poor drainage, a lot of development that you have properties in low-lying areas."
"You tend to see development in these areas and persons living in areas that are more highly at risk for mosquito-borne transmitted diseases. So we tend to appeal to the public basically to work with us because the vector control department operates with a total number of staff of 67."
"Of that 67 about 45 are actual field technicians on the ground. You have laboratory personnel drivers and stuff like that so you have 45 field officers on the ground across this country so you could imagine you must have shared responsibility with the public in terms of cleaning up your yards and doing the basic environmental management and cleaning that everyone should take onus to do around their properties."
