DOH urged to implement protocol vs ‘Black Death’ plague

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Health officials have been asked to install measures to ensure that a deadly disease from China would not find its way to the country following reports that two people infected by the bubonic plague died in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region recently.

Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of this city’s second district has asked the Department of Health (DOH) and port authorities to put in place necessary mechanisms to prevent the possible entry of the dreaded disease in the country, considering the number of Chinese nationals arriving in the Philippines daily.

“We have to tighten our quarantine [measures] against Chinese coming from the affected region of China,” Rodriguez said.

He said the Duterte administration must request the Chinese government to enforce their own quarantine in the communities where the disease—known to have caused the so-called Black Death and had wiped about 50 million people in Europe during the Middle Ages—was discovered and they should be isolated by imposing a protocol to prevent the spread of the disease.

“We should keep a close watch,” Rufus said. The Bureau of Immigration said a total of 3.12 million Chinese citizens entered the country from January 2016 to May 2018.—JIGGER J. JERUSALEM