Over 1,000 cases of HFMD recorded in Davao Region

P385-K total cash prize offered for Araw ng Davao cheerdance

The City Government of Davao offers a total cash prize of P385,000 for the winners of the 86th Araw ng Dabaw Cheerdance Competition, which takes center stage at 3 p.m. on March 11 at the Davao City Recreation Center (DCDR), formerly Almendras Gym.

A top purse of P150,000 awaits the champion team while the runner-up and third placer will take home P100,000 and P75,000, respectively.

The cheerdance contest, according to organizers, is open to all Filipino citizens 12 years old and above, representing any school, city, business, and or organization.

Each team must be comprised of at least 25 to 30 participants, excluding the maximum of five spotters who must only assist in any dismounting incidents, otherwise, the team will be penalized with a five-point deduction.

The criteria for judging are categorized into five:

• Dance (250 points)

– motions/difficulty, technique, choreography, tim- ing/spacing/execution, mastery, and synchronization, jump execution, costume, props, cheer, musicality, incorporation of Davao City element;

• Tumbling (50 points) – difficulty, techniques, creativity, overall effect;

• Stunts (50 points) –difficulty, technique, creativity, spacing and synchronization, overall effect;

• Pyramids(50 points) – difficulty, technique, creativity, spacing and synchronization, overall effect;

• Tosses (50 points) –difficulty, technique, quantity, synchronization, overall effect.

Interested contingents only have until March 6 to submit their entries, including waivers.

Downloadable forms are available here such as entry forms and guidelines – https://tinyurl. com/ CheerdanceCompetition2023; and waiver –https:// tinyurl.com CheerdanceWaiver. These are also available at the Davao City Tourism Operations Office, fourth floor, DCIPC Building, Palma Gil Street. CIO

By MAYA M. PADILLO

The Department of Health-Davao Center for Health Development reported on Monday that there have been 1,412 Hand Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) cases recorded from January 1 to February 11, 2023 with 166 barangays noted with clustering of cases.

“The pattern is for the first month of January this year we saw an increasing pattern of HFMD and that is throughout the region,” said Dr. Gerna Manatad,

DOH-11 assistant regional director, during the Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao on Monday.

Based on the monitoring, the Regional Epide- miology and Surveillance Unit (RESU) reported 296 cases of HFMD in Davao City, 415 in Davao de Oro; 374 in Davao del Norte; 25 in Davao del Sur; 200 in Davao Occidental and 102 in Davao Oriental.

However, no death has been reported.

652 of these HFMD cases are females and 760 are males, which affected the age group from 0 to 9 years old.

“The data also is coming from the different local epidemiology and surveillance unit from the public health stations and hospitals. HFMD is part of the monitoring of the DOH because it tends to affect children and has the tendency to spread and infect even adults,” Manatad said. The most common symptoms of HFMD are nausea, sore throat, loss of appetite, weakness, and blisters. Cases of HFMD are usually mild but a child can experience dehydration.

Study detects traces of pesticide in urine samples of locals near pineapple plantation

An official of the Wonjin Institute for Occupational and Environmental Health (WIOEH)-South Korea revealed on Monday its study detecting high levels of notorious pesticide in the urine samples gathered from the communities near a pineapple plantation in Baguio District, Davao City.

This is in line with the study conducted by the Interfacing Development Interventions for Sustainability (IDIS), Inc. last year with methodology includes collecting samples of urine and household dust from the communities in Baguio District, particularly in Barangay Tawan-Tawan near a pineapple plantation.

Dr. Won Kim, director for research of WIO-

EH-South Korea, said that a high level of chlorpyrifos pesticide was detected in the urine collected and the chemical can affect severely the children’s health.

“It could be collected by drift or the wind from the field where the pesticide was sprayed. We collected human urine. Maybe the farmer is directly exposed while the children and spouses are not involved in the spray but at the level of the pesticides in their urine samples we confirmed it. We have to find the source maybe their environment, second is maybe the food they consumed was contaminated with pesticide,” he said during Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City Davao on Monday.