Typhoid fever downs 30 in NoCot village

Health officials in North Cotabato province have sent a team to help the municipal health office of Pikit town to contain the rising number of typhoid fever cases in one of its remote villages.

As of Tuesday, the North Cotabato Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) said at least 30 persons have been hospitalized for typhoid fever that hit the village of Manaulanan.

In a statement, Dr. Eva Rabaya, North Cotabato provincial health officer, said the 30 patients were all residents of the village that have taken unsafe drinking water since the last week of December.

Manaulanan is a remote village with no potable drinking water.

Residents rely on commercially available mineral drinking water in gallons or bottles but the indigents take drinking water from water pumps and open wells.

“No one was reported to have died among the patients,” Rabaya said in a radio interview Tuesday.

Quoting a report from the Pikit municipal health office, she said the possible cause of the typhoid fever was the contaminated drinking water that people sourced from open wells and water pumps in the area.

“Many of the patients were children who are now in various hospitals in Pikit,” Rabaya said, adding that members of the IPHO sent to the village have brought with them medicine and water purification tablets to help prevent the spread of waterborne diseases.

Source: Philippines News Agency

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