TABUK, Kalinga — The Cordillera office of the Center for Health Development here recently lifted the dengue outbreak and heightened alert in this province following a significant reduction in the number of cases in the previous monitoring period over the past several weeks.

For the past week, dengue fever cases in the province have dropped to only 7, which is an indication that people in the different critical areas have already been properly informed on how to prevent the worsening of the outbreak that could prove to be deadlier once it is not controlled.

Tabuk, where about 90 percent of the dengue fever cases were recorded, prompted the CHD-CAR to declare a dengue outbreak last July when the number of cases reached 101 in just a few days, the highest so far in three years.

Since the dengue outbreak broke out last June, local health authorities conducted weekly monitoring on the trends of the dengue fever cases in the different parts of the province.

From January to the present, the provincial health office reported it was able to record three dengue-related deaths.

The weekly monitoring graphs of the local health department showed the cases of dengue started to drop on August 22-29 until the alert and outbreak was recently lifted.

A dengue outbreak was declared in the province in 2006 following the epidemic in 2005 where seven dengue-related deaths were recorded.

On the other hand, the provincial government is seeking to post zero rabies deaths in the remaining period of the year after it was able to record annual deaths for the past three years.