MANILA, Philippines - A Quezon City councilor said it will be wise for the parents to make their children wear long pants or pajamas in public schools to prevent mosquito bites to protect them from dengue and other similar diseases. Councilor Jaime Borres of the city's third district however maintained that keeping surroundings clean including the school yard is the most efficient way to drive the dengue-carrying mosquito away. He noted that there is also an urgent need to conduct a continuous education to prevent the spread of dengue and other communicable diseases to the students, parents, teachers by informing them on the techniques to control if not totally avoid the dengue outbreak. Earlier, Dr. Elvira Dumlao principal of the Rosa L. Susano-Novaliches Elementary School in coordination with barangay officials introduced other alternative measures in combating dengue through herbal fumigation.
In her ''Kontra-Dengue'' campaign, Dumlao led school and barangay officials in imposing the mandatory wearing of long pants in school, herbal and medicinal planting of anti-mosquito flora (oregano and silantro), distribution of chewy Vitamin C to the school's pupils and the installation of anti-dengue kits like water based insecticide spray in all the classrooms.
Borres cited Dumlao for her anti-dengue campaign in her school saying that her initiatives are worth emulating as he asked other school and barangay officials in the city to ''take the cue'' from her efforts to fight the disease and avoid unnecessary deaths. ''What is even more astonishing is that she heads the most populous grade school in Metro Manila with 9, 600 enrollees. Employing such task is a Herculean job,'' Borres noted. Borres said that another rise of dengue similar to the 50 percent upsurge of the cases in the first seven months of 2010 as reported by the Department of Health (DoH) can be avoided if concerned officials follow Dumlao's method to the hilt.
