MANILA, Philippines — The Quezon City government said that dengue cases in the city is expected to decline this year with the year-round sustainable prevention and control program strictly enforced in the city’s 142 barangays.

Tadeo Palma, Secretary to the Mayor, said that since last month the city government started the program by mobilizing barangay officials as the forefront of the implementation of the comprehensive dengue reduction campaign.

With Mayor Herbert Bautista taking the lead, Palma noted that the city government hosted a community-based dengue summit to enhance the role of the barangays in environmental clean-up, community surveillance and information dissemination campaign to ensure the reduction of breeding sites of dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

“Dengue prevention and control is a community effort. It is imperative that we must do our own contribution as part of community service,” Bautista said.

In the summit, City Health Officer Antonieta Inumerable said that this year’s intervention program for dengue prevention in Quezon City calls for a systematic and planned house-to-house advocacy campaign that will be carried through community-based dengue vector control strategies.

“While the QC health department is exerting its best effort to control the increasing trend of dengue cases, a more focused and sustainable strategy is still needed to control the spread of the disease,” Inumerable said.

The barangay summit on dengue also served as venue for the city government to disseminate the salient features of the Quezon City Dengue Prevention and Control Program Plan provided for under ordinance SP-2097, S-2011, authored by Coun-cilor Anthony Peter Crisologo.

The measure calls for the formation of dengue brigades or task force at the city, barangay and school levels to check or reduce as early as possible, the incidence of dengue cases in the city. In 2011, the epidemiology and surveillance unit of the city health department reported about 8,431 dengue cases, with 68 death cases.

Barangays registering the most number of dengue cases are Bagbag, San Bartolome, Commonwealth, Batasan Hills, Gulod, Holy Spirit, Tandang Sora, Sta. Monica, Sauyo, Novaliches Proper, Bahay-Toro and Nagkaisang Nayon.