LIPA City, 26 August 2019
The team has made great progress despite some hiccups during recruitment; as 1st August, 80% of households were identified and 67% of children enrolled for saliva testing and so it was necessary to focus on revisiting some clusters to reach the target of number of children to be sampled and to select supplementary clusters to get up to the 46 clusters.
5 RITM staffs assisted by 3 District Health Workers meet early at the District Health Center to organize the program of visits to complete recruitment of children for saliva testing.
Monday 26th is day off in the Philippines and the ECOMORE team took this opportunity to visit households who were not available during previous visits.
Children above 12 years old are informed on the saliva collection and the use of the specimen and sign a consent form.
The ECOMORE team will also work next week-end to organize the initial collection of saliva samples as there is greater chance to meet children at home during these days of collective rest.
The In2care system will be installed in the next weeks because it is critical to consider that this study is conducted in the context of dengue outbreak; on 06th August 2019, the Department of Health (DOH) declared a national dengue epidemic. Based on the DOH Dengue Surveillance Report, there are 146,062 cases recorded from January to July 20 this year, 98% higher than the same period in 2018. There were 622 deaths.
This innovative vector control technique is set up in a country gripped by dengue vaccine fears; in this context it is critical to wait the end of the peak of epidemic to start the field study to prevent a fake correlation between installation of In2care traps and increase of dengue cases.
Slideshow to visit LIPA city
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