MANILA, Philippines - The military on Saturday sent a 14-man team of military medical team to a village in Romblon, where a number of residents were stricken with typhoid and dengue fever for the past days.
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Gen. Alexander Yano personally sent off the doctors at the Villamor Air Base in Pasay City where they boarded a military Focker plane on their way to the province, said AFP public affairs chief Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres.
Torres said Yano sent the mission in response to an appeal by officials of Romblon for medical support.
The team is composed of seven doctors (a pathologist, a pediatrician, a urologist, an oncologist and general practitioners), three nurses and four aidmen from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which is complemented by three reservists of the Philippine National Police (PNP) from Southern Luzon.
The AFP group is headed by Maj. Rovelyn Bambao and the PNP group is under Supt. Bulaclac Resurreccion.
Health officials earlier said the disease outbreak could have been caused by a contamination in the water reservoir of Capaclan village in Romblon town of Romblon province.
Local officials have said typhoid and dengue "affected" as many as 350 of 700 students from the Romblon East Central School.
Torres said an average of 12 patients have been seeking assistance for typhoid fever for the past days, adding that local officials have already recorded a death. He could not categorically say exactly since when the figures were recorded. - GMANews.TV