Monday, July 21, 2008 City readies grim commercials to promote prevention habits
NOT contented with the barangay officials’ measures so far against the dengue menace, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña wants to give the public a dose of reality through a series of advertisements to get them to act on the problem.
The 30-second television commercials are morbid, with scenes of a teenager dying in the emergency room and parents losing their child to the dengue virus.
The sound effects and musical score used for the commercials will remind viewers of horror movies.
But for the mayor, such advertisements will be effective in preventing dengue because of the reality they present.
Since January this year, the number of dengue cases has been decreasing, although 114 cases were recorded for June alone, and the figures are higher than last year’s.
But the mayor said the City has to prepare for the coming months because according to the previous years’ records of the City Health Department (CHD), the number of cases can go as high as 450 a month in the third and fourth quarter of the year.
Habits
From Jan. 1 to June 30, 726 cases have been recorded by the CHD, with 31 deaths.
“We can control the situation if people are just sensitive about changing the water in their vases, cleaning their surroundings and getting rid of stagnant water,” said Osmeña.
Osmeña said that with the expected increase in the number of dengue cases in the coming months, what the City Government and the barangays are doing at present will not be enough.
“How can you be satisfied when people are dying? There’s a lot that can be done to raise the awareness of the people... that’s why we have prepared some commercials
for television to make the people aware how dangerous the situation is,” he told reporters.
The commercials, produced by Bigfoot Global Solutions, will start airing as soon as the City can work out a discount and the contract with local television stations.
In one of the five commercials produced, a young man and woman are featured, with flashback scenes of special occasions and their happier times as a couple. Their relationship abruptly ends when the girl contracts dengue fever and dies.
Warning
The line “Dengue Kills” appears in the commercial, as well as the City’s dengue hotline numbers that the public can call for questions and assistance from City Hall in relation to the dengue campaign.
Another commercial shows a photo of a happy family, and ends with the young daughter suddenly disappearing from the photo.
“I don’t want to call this the dengue scare because the threat is there. We are not just tricking the people, it’s the truth,” Osmeña added. (LCR)
