By Rebecca Cadavos

Maasin City, Southern Leyte (3 December) -- At least seven years in continuous treatment, monitoring and follow-ups, the Department of Health (DOH) has declared Southern Leyte as the 1st Filariasis-Free province throughout the country.

In an interview with Provincial Filariasis Coordinator Celestial Plateros, the Provincial Health Team started treating those infected by Filaria last 2000 yet until 2007. Mass treatment provincewide was done yearly, she said.

Plateros, a Medical Technologist by profession narrated that by year 1999, they targeted Barangay Gawisan in Maasin City which was found to have 47 confirmed cases of Filaria., since the disease originated from parasite, particularly mosquito that will stay in axilled plants ilke abaca. And Brgy Gawisan has large abaca plantation, the source added.

The survey conducted by the DOH was done in three phases, Plateros revealed. The first one, was randomly selection of residents all over the province, which was found out to be negative. The second, was the picking of 10 barangays throughout the province, with 500 residents in each barangay, which was also found negative of filaria.

The third one, which was believed to be the the most difficult according to the source, was the submission of listings of all school children in Southern Leyte sourced from the Department of Education (DepEd) and the surveying team selected only 3,000 of them and all of them were found to be negative, Plateros relayed.

Other provinces that found to be endemic in Filariasis were the provinces of Bukidnon and Sorsogon, but during the latest survey, they were still found to have filariasis infection.

Plateros said that foreign donated medicines were used to treat filariasis here, like Diethylcarbamazine which is used in the treatment of worm infections and Albendazole for deworming. These medicines were supplied through the DOH, she said.