MANILA – A senior member of the Cabinet asked the Arroyo administration to allocate additional funding equivalent to $2 million to counter the growing threat of swine flu as the Philippines joined Asia-Pacific nations in urging their peoples not to panic because of the dreaded diseases.
Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd of the Department of Health explained they need the extra $2 million to effectively implement measures to fight the swine flu virus, now known officially as the H1N1 influenza virus.
Duque cited the urgent need to purchase more capsules of the anti-flu medicine Ostel Tamivile (Oseltamivir), the generic equivalent of Tamiflu, to add to the stockpile that the health department already has in its inventory.
During a meeting of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), Duque said he informed the members that the government has 600,000 Oseltamivir capsules that could treat at least 40,000 swine flu patients.
But the NDCC members later agreed to seek extra funding to enable the health department to purchase additional capsules of the same medicine that could treat 100,000 patients, according to Duque.
In the same meeting, Duque revealed that Secretary Gilbert Teodoro of the Department of National Defense, who heads the NDCC, has named him the “de facto” council chairman to handle all concerns pertaining to the disease.
As part of the precautionary measures, Duque said the government will require all arriving passengers to undergo the mandatory thermal screening at major airports and seaports nationwide to prevent the possible entry of the virus.
He said the NDCC has set up such scanners in six international airports as well as seaports, which can detect body temperature and tell if an incoming passenger is feverish, which is one of the symptoms of the disease.
All arriving passengers running a fever will also be required to subject themselves to quarantine upon stepping out of their planes, Duque said.
When an inbound passenger is suspected of being infected with the virus, Duque said he/she will immediately be taken to one of the five government hospitals in Metro Manila as well as in the Visayas and Mindanao for quarantine and further examination and treatment.
In Metro Manila, these hospitals are the Lung Center of the Philippines in Quezon City, the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa City and the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila, Duque said.
In Mindanao, Duque said the government has tapped the Davao Medical Center in Davao City and the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City in the Visayas.
At the same time, Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan ordered all immigration personnel in the country’s major international airports, like the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Metro Manila to undergo vaccination to the counter the virus.
Immigration officers, as the country’s first line of defense at the airports, must have adequate health protection, like vaccination, against the virus, Libanan explained.
Meanwhile, Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales of the city of Manila issued a circular for an “oratio imperata” or an obligatory prayer, to be said during Mass as a shield against the virus.
An aide of Rosales explained the saying of the prayer on bended knees will be conducted after Holy Communion starting on Sunday.
Loading ...
Reader’s Views