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Toads, fish and herbal tea used to fight dengue as epidemic spreads across the Philippines
- Villages have poured frogs and mosquitofish in canals to target the larvae of Aedes mosquitoes
- But experts have warned that the predators may themselves become toxic pests
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Nearly two years after the Philippine government rejected the world’s first dengue vaccine, communities across the country are turning to toads, fish, bags of rice and herbal teas to fight a dengue epidemic that has so far killed about 900 people and infected 209,000 others.
Last week, officials of one village in Metro Manila released a thousand toads into canals and waterways to eat the larvae of the Aedes mosquitoes that transmit the disease. In Pangasinan province, inhabitants poured thousands of mosquitofish into rivers and creeks to hunt down the larvae. In the village of Alion in Bataan province, residents were offered a unique bounty: one kilo of rice for every 200 mosquitoes killed.
Meanwhile, some local scientists have recommended drinking tea made from local herbal plants – either tawa-tawa or papaya – to treat people suffering from the disease.
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Health secretary Francisco Duque III told the Post that the number of dengue cases and deaths in the first seven months of this year were nearly double what they were for a similar period last year.
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The Philippines is not alone – the dengue epidemic runs across Southeast Asia. According to Duque, “the World Health Organisation says there’s a three-year cycle of dengue epidemics that happen mostly in Southeast Asia – but with [the Philippines] it looks like it’s already occurring every other year”.
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