MALASIQUI, Pangasinan (PNA) — The Department of Health (DoH) regional office is set to conduct water sampling here to validate its initial findings that the outbreak of acute gastroenteritis here from May 31 to June 8 was caused by contaminated water.
Dr. Revelyn Cayabyab, regional epidemiologist of DoH Region 1, said the water sampling will be conducted starting Monday, only a few days after it was first conducted by the municipal health office of Malasiqui.
Cayabyab said there were close to 180 patients who were hospitalized as a result of gastroenteritis. They came from 53 of more than 70 barangays of the town. No fatality was noted among the patients.
She did not believe that the outbreak was caused by food intake because the patients came from different barangays and did not take the same kind of food.
The affected barangays, she said, have something in common: The residents were drawing water from deep wells.
At the same time, she believed that the disease was not air-borne.
Otherwise, she said, the acute gastroenteritis would not have been confined only in Malasiqui.
