An 11-year-old girl has died and 85 persons from two towns in Northern Samar have been afflicted with suspected typhoid fever possibly due to a contaminated source of drinking water.
Most of the afflicted persons came from Gamay town, where 80 persons, including children were downed with suspected typhoid fever, Jessica Tepace, disease surveillance coordinator of the Northern Samar provincial health office, said.
Tepace said six other victims came from Barangay (village) Guyo of Las Navas town, all of whom were treated at the rural health center on Monday.
She disclosed on Friday that the ailment has claimed the life of an 11-year-old girl from Barangay Libertad in Gamay town who died last December 8.
Tepace said that cases were first reported in the last week of November but reached its “peak” in December with 61 of them confined at the Gamay District Hospital and eight treated in the Northern Samar Provincial Hospital in Catarman town.
However, Tepace said that the situation in Gamay has been placed under control.
“We have already provided IV (intravenous) fluids and medicine to the municipal government of Gamay to be given to all those affected with typhoid fever,” Tepace said.
She added that they have issued an advisory to the people in the affected areas urging them to boil their drinking water to avoid getting any water-borne disease like typhoid fever.
With continuous rains still affecting the province, the possibility that water-borne diseases would occur was not remote since the open spring and water pumps, the common sources of drinking water in the province, were open to contamination.
