AFTER SEVERAL YEARS not in the Philippines, LUX (one of Unilever’s personal care brands) has returned to the local market with the introduction of its new “Perfumed Bath Collection” featuring body washes and bar soaps, and sans the hair care items.
IN A HOSPITAL in Trece Martires City, Cavite, dengue patients had to be admitted and confined to hospital rooms not sufficiently equipped to deal with the sudden rise in the number of dengue cases and influx of patients.
In Cavite Province alone, the big leap in dengue incidence prompted the Philippine Red Cross to set up an Emergency Field Hospital to accommodate more dengue patients.
With dengue hogging the headlines, Malacañang assured the country on Oct. 4 that the Department of Health (DoH) is closely monitoring dengue incidence in the country, and that the department is on top of the situation.
Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma said the health department has been providing medical services to the provinces, cities, and other areas where there are reports of dengue cases.
While noting that the number of dengue cases has risen in several regions, Mr. Coloma said its incidence has “declined” in other regions as well.
He cited Mimaropa where the number of dengue cases dropped from 1,646 to 1,346; Bicol (from 993 to 868); Western Visayas (from 5,718 to 3,756); Central Visayas (3,481 to 3,326); Eastern Visayas (4,508 to 737); Zamboanga Peninsula (4,743 to 3,981); Northern Mindanao (6,298 to 5,795); the Davao region (5,849 to 2,619); Soccsksargen (5,302 to 5,109); and Caraga (6,946 to 2,598).
The coming season of drought due to El Niño may possibly contribute to an increase in the number of dengue cases. The long hours of water interruption will force household to stockpile water in containers where mosquitoes can breed. These water containers must be covered or properly sealed to prevent them from being used as breeding grounds.
According the January-August 2015 DoH Epidemiology Bureau estimates, 55,079 people were suspected of having been infected with dengue after showing some of its symptoms like high fever, muscle pain, and skin rashes. The figure 55,079 represented a 9.15% increase compared to the same period last year, pegged at 50,492.
The DoH has observed that most of the cases were from Calabarzon, Metro Manila, Central Luzon, Northern Mindanao, and Cagayan Valley.
As for the availability of a dengue vaccine in the country, the DoH said the “new vaccine against the dengue virus” is being registered and undergoing strict safety processing at the Food and Drug Administration offices. The DoH said is targeting to launch pilot testing of the vaccine in select areas some time next year.
Since there are no officially approved or prescribed dengue vaccines yet for public consumption, and, at the same time there, no specific medications to treat a dengue infection, prevention is still the No. 1 and the most important step to deal with dengue.
Essentially prevention is avoiding mosquito bites, if possible.
Top among the best ways to eradicate mosquitoes is to eliminate or destroy the places where mosquitoes lay their eggs. Among these breeding grounds are artificial containers that hold water in and around the home. Mosquitoes also breed in clean water containers like pet and animal watering containers, flower vases, and water storage barrels. Water in flower vases must be replaced or changed at least once a week.
Adult dengue-causing mosquitoes prefer to bite both inside and outside residential areas, during the day and at night time, even when the lights are switched on.
It is advisable to use a mosquito repellent on skin surfaces to prevent mosquito bites. If possible and comfortable, wear long sleeved shirts and long pants for further protection. The use of window and door screens, without holes, help in preventing mosquito bites.
If a member of the household is already infected with dengue, take extra precautions to prevent mosquitoes from biting the patient as they may eventually bite other members of the household, infecting them too.
A mosquito-borne flavivirus disease, dengue has spread to most tropical countries, such as the Philippines, and many subtropical areas. The disease is caused by four closely related viruses, the Dengue viruses 1-4.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization is currently reviewing evidence and will advise the WHO on any recommended use of a licensed dengue vaccine. A meeting has been scheduled on April 2016.
Key considerations include vaccine safety, vaccine efficacy, disease burden, programmatic suitability, including dose scheduling, and cost-effectiveness.
Log on to www.phap.org.ph and www.phapcares.org.ph. E-mail the author at reiner.gloor@gmail.com.
Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim
AS ONE of the world’s most recognized shapes turns a century old this year, The Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) decided to launch a 15-country tour showcasing the art that is, and was inspired by, the Coke bottle.
NEW YORK — Tiger Lily may not be played by a Native American actress in a new movie version of the Peter Pan story, but her tough, all-action character is an inspiration to girls, the movie’s director said.
Joe Wright’s controversial decision last year to cast white actress Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily in his live action Pan prompted a petition to movie studio Warner Bros. that has collected some 94,000 signatures.
Wright said the defining image of Tiger Lily as a Native American came largely through the 1953 animated Walt Disney version of Peter Pan.
Scottish writer J.M. Barrie’s century-old play and novel refers to Tiger Lily and her tribe as “pickaninny” warriors — a non-specific but racist term usually used to describe people with dark skin.
Wright’s movie Pan, a prequel to the Peter Pan tale that will be released next month, depicts Tiger Lily as a warrior princess and gives her more authority and fight scenes than any of the men in the film.
“I was particularly keen to make sure Tiger Lily wasn’t a damsel in distress,” Wright told Reuters on Thursday. “Tiger Lily is the bad-ass warrior who is far more pro-active physically in defeating (evil pirate) Blackbeard than any of the boys. She has all the action sequences.”
“When little girls come out of seeing the movie, their favorite character always is Tiger Lily. When asked why, they say ‘because she can do anything.’ I think she is quite an empowering character for little girls and that to me is really gratifying,” Wright said.
Wright said Mara was chosen because she has “a regal quality and also she’s a little bit frightening — you really wouldn’t mess with Rooney.”
Wright cast dozens of black, Indian, Korean and other nationalities to make up Tiger Lily’s tribe in Neverland. “I liked the idea they were indigenous people who were fighting against the colonialist rule of Blackbeard,” he said.
“I can understand how it appears from an outside perspective,” Wright said of the upset over Mara’s casting. “But when people see the film, they get it.” — Reuters
By Mary Mitchell
LIKE IT OR NOT, we all are responsible for our own communication. E-mail evokes almost unprecedented cultural and generational challenges.
Ads & Ends
By Nanette Franco-Diyco
THREE TIMES a week at the Ateneo, my students in my advertising classes — composed of juniors and seniors in their final years of college — perk up with discussions on what they viewed on television or in social media that week.
By Richard Roeper
OVER the last 20 years, Matt Damon has arguably the highest batting average of any actor of his generation. The critical and commercial hits, from Good Will Hunting to The Talented Mr. Ripley, from the Oceans franchise to the Bourne movies, from Syriana to The Departed, far outnumber the less-remembered (but still solid) works.
Hey, even We Bought a Zoo ended up grossing over $120 million worldwide, and I still say it’s not THAT corny.
In Ridley Scott’s The Martian, Damon plays Mark Watney: botanist, astronaut, University of Chicago grad, Cubs fans, deep-dish pizza lover and all-around good guy who’s part of a crew on an expedition to Mars. Once they reach the Red Planet, they go about their daily business of collecting samples and monitoring the atmosphere and compiling data — until a massive storm hits, and by the time the dust clears, Mark is alone on Mars.
In a telephone interview, Damon talked about the challenges of filming a movie epic in scope and yet in some ways deeply personal, whether he would ever go to Mars — and what a certain political candidate would say about an astronaut who was left behind on the Red Planet.
“The script came (to me) before Ridley was even attached,” says Damon.
“Drew Goddard, who wrote it, was attached to direct. But then he got offered a big comic-book movie he’d been dying to do for years (Spider-Man vs. Sinister Six). So he left the project and I thought it would just get postponed. But then I heard Ridley was interested, so I jumped in my car and raced over to his office and, five minutes later, we had agreed to do the movie together.”
Scott, of course, is the director of Alien, Blade Runner, Black Hawk Down, Thelma & Louise, et al. Recent films such as Exodus: Gods and Kings and The Counselor have landed with a thud with most fans and critics — but I think they’re kinda great, albeit in a slightly loony fashion.
“I’m like you, I love Ridley’s work,” says Damon. “I’ve been a fan since Alien. As a young guy, Alien and Blade Runner were formative movies for me — movies that made me want to make movies. So (making a film with Scott) was at the top of my bucket list.”
In the opening scenes of The Martian, Mark is bantering with the crew and it looks like a prototypical ensemble space movie — until the storm hits.
“It’s about a mission to Mars in the very near future that goes horribly wrong,” says Damon. “There’s a storm and one of the astronauts, the one I play, is struck by a piece of the communications tower, and his teammates think he’s dead, so they perform this emergency evacuation and they leave Mars. The presumption is he’s not alive — but they subsequently find out he is alive and he’s on the Red Planet. So it’s about this one guy trying to survive on an inhospitable planet.”
For most of the film, Damon is acting alone, on location in Jordan or on a soundstage, playing a man who will spend the rest of his days or at least a couple of years (the time it would take to send a rescue team) by himself.
“It was a little nerve-wracking going in, a little odd not to have a scene partner, not to have someone to bounce things off of. But it was really fun. Ridley was never more than a few feet away. And all those monologues are pretty much from the book and they’re really entertaining and funny…
“The surface suit I wear on ‘Mars,’ when I put that on in Jordan, it got toasty pretty quick. Luckily, Ridley doesn’t do too many takes.”
Even though Mark is alone for most of the story and he has moments where he breaks down, he’s never on the verge of losing touch with reality, a la Tom Hanks in Castaway.
“Unlike in Castaway or Robinson Crusoe, he’s alone, but he’s behaving with the expectation he’s being watched,” says Damon, “because cameras are on him all the time, and he’s leaving a log or a journal for other scientists. It’s a weird thing because it’s like, he’s self-aware because people are probably going to watch this video of him someday… He’s behaving with the expectation they will someday.”
The Martian is really three movies: Mark’s ingenious efforts to live on a planet not designed for human life; the rest of his crew on a ship bound for home, deciding whether they should in effect turn around and go back for Mark, which will take months and months and will endanger their own lives; and the international effort on Earth to figure out a way to bring Mark home. Nations and cultures unite to save one man.
“It’s a very uplifting movie, a nice thing to put out into the world right now,” says Damon. “As another presidential campaign ramps up and everyone works to divide us all, this is hopefully an antidote to that.”
Imagine what Donald Trump would say about an astronaut who needs so much help.
“Right,” says Damon with a chuckle. “‘It’s not my fault. He shouldn’t have been left behind. I like the guys who don’t get left behind.’”
The 44-year-old Damon has four daughters with wife Luciana. Asked if he’d jump at the chance to actually go to Mars, he laughed.
“I don’t think I can bring that one up at the dinner table. Yeah, that’d be a non-starter.” — Universal UClick
MYTH 1: THERE’S A PILL FOR EVERY ILL.
There’s no cure for every disease, said former Department of Health former Secretary Alfredo R.A. Bengzon in a forum on Oct. 1 at The Medical City (TMC), “but preventive health care is still the way to go.” Alas, it is common practice in the Philippines for the majority of doctors prescribe a drug during consultations, when it shouldn’t be so. The 1991 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for governance, who is also TMC’s president and chief executive officer, said that they’re trying to change that way of doing things. What is more important is to establish a good relationship between a patient and a doctor so the patient feels at ease when it comes to sharing information about his or her health conditions. The doctor does not necessarily have to prescribe drugs at every check up.
According to TMC director Dr. Eugenio Jose F. Ramos, sometimes husbands get angry with their wives who divulge their partner’s health problems when it’s necessary for the doctors to hear the full story.
He said it’s important to have a transparent, tell-all relationship between doctors and patients.
MYTH 2: WITH OLD AGE COMES MANY KINDS OF SICKNESS.
It is not necessarily true that with old age comes ill health, the doctors said.
Just because one is old does not mean he or she is bound to be sickly and frail. “Health should be an investment,” said Dr. Bengzon. Anyone can be healthy even in old age, he added.
Common mistake: Filipinos are guilty of skipping regular checkups unless a glaring symptom is present.
Dr. Ramos noted that the majority of the Filipinos consider the annual checkups companies conduct for their employees a nuisance. “We are [bothered by] forced checkups. A lot of us never bother to go to a doctor without any symptoms,” he said.
“Health is central to human life. We need to dramatize it if we want to debunk myths and to change outcomes, which result to behavior change,” said Dr. Bengzon.
With the goal of empowering Filipinos to be more proactive when it comes to their health, TMC is launching its Be Healthy Always campaign, which will offer free checkups and consultations on Oct. 10 and 11 at the Activity Center of the TriNoma mall in Quezon City.
There will be 10 to 12 doctors in six hubs: cardiology, ophthalmology, pediatrics, wellness, gynecology, and obstetrics.
“Prevention should be integrated into all aspects of our lives. The overarching goal of this movement is to increase the number of Filipinos who are healthy at every stage of their life,” said Dr. Bengzon.
While the kick-off campaign initially targets Metro Manila (according to Dr. Ramos, more than 50% of doctors in the Philippines practive within the megalopolis), it is planned that the Be Healthy Always campaign be a continuous process, with the two doctors saying they are calling more partners in order for it to go nationwide and have a long run. — Nickky Faustine P. de Guzman
By Makini Brice
LAC ROSE, SENEGAL — Approaching Senegal’s sand dune-flanked Lac Rose, overcast skies hid the sun and, at first, obscured the vibrant pink hue that gives the expansive lake its name.
By Carmencita A. Carillo
ISLAND GARDEN City of Samal — It starts out looking like a normal five-pointed star, but the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) eventually develops more arms, swells up to one meter in diameter, grows thorns, and preys on corals.
This invertebrate — as it is in other areas in the Indo-Pacific including the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park — is threatening the coral reefs around the Island Garden City of Samal (IGaCoS), a popular tourist destination in Mindanao for its beach resorts, snorkeling and diving.
To address the risk of an outbreak, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in Davao Region is planning to reduce the number of the crown-of-thorns starfish through continued harvesting activities in partnership with local divers.
“We want to reduce the number of crown-of-thorns, especially in the popular diving sites in IGaCoS because they are destroying the corals,” BFAR Region 11 Director Fatma M. Idris said. “Samal’s diving sites are frequented by tourists so it is important to take care of them,” she said.
Last year, members of the BFAR-Region 11 and the Divers Association of Davao City collected up to 20 sacks of the starfish, a task that they said is not easy.
“We are very careful in collecting the crown-of-thorns because they are very itchy and painful once its parts get into contact with human skin,” Ms. Idris said.
“The crown-of-thorns also easily breaks and the broken parts can easily regrow and multiply… They look nice because of their colors but they are very destructive,” she pointed out.
The starfish, which come in a variety of brilliant colors, are not the only problem. Their population is increasing abnormally because their natural predators are being taken by humans, Ms. Idris said.
Among these natural predators are the Napoleon Wrasse or Humphead Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus), one of the largest reef fish in the world that feed on urchins and crown-of-thorn starfish.
The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) reported that the Humphead Wrasse, classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as endangered, has often been the object of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing as it is a highly valued fish in the luxury live reef fish trade, fetching a price of up to $250 to $300 per kilogram in China.
The WWF also said the illegal harvesting of the Humphead Wrasse using cyanide is still prevalent in the Philippines, Indonesia, and probably eastern Malaysia.
While the mature Humphead Wrasse are harvested for the live reef fish trade, the small juveniles are collected for the aquarium fish trade.
This fish species cannot be artificially cultured in hatcheries, and so there is no way of increasing their population in the wild.
“We tried ordering the Napoleon Wrasses in one of the Chinese restaurants here and were told to come back since they ran out of stock,” said Councilor Leonardo R. Avila III, chairman of the committee on environment. “This means there are still people who harvest the fish species even it if is already prohibited,” he added.
Another natural crown-of-thorns predator is the trumpet shell, known to locals as budyong, which is also classified as endangered.
Ms. Idris said the harvesting, consumption, and sale of trumpet shells for ornamental use has been banned in the country. Vendors, particularly at the popular souvenirs place Aldevinco Shopping Center in Davao City, have been informed of about the prohibition and airport authorities are on the lookout for smuggling of these shells, she said.
“It is important to protect the corals not only from dynamite fishing but also from the crown-of-thorns,” said Mr. Avila, “since this is where pelagic fishes lay their eggs and where the small ones take shelter.”
Mr. Avila, who is a CoastGuard Auxilliary member, also pointed out that humans also contribute to the destruction of corals through their unmanaged waste.
“It’s all about maintaining a balance in the ecosystem. There is an imbalance now,” he said.
