MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has approved in principle the P2.25-billion budget intended for the personal protective equipment (PPE) of healthcare workers responding to the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) situation in the country, Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque said Tuesday.
Duque said personal protective equipment for some 5,000 healthcare workers will be covered under the budget.
“The President has also approved in principle the budget of 2.25 billion pesos for the procurement of personal protective equipment on the assumption that there will be five thousand healthcare workers who will need this,” Duque told the Senate Committee on Health’s hearing on the country’s preparedness on the nCoV outbreak.
“This is going to be on the assumption that this will last for 90 days or 3 months, multiplied by three shifts because the care will have to be round the clock, cannot be just for 8 hours,” he added.
Duque added that Duterte also approved the purchase of P10-million worth of surgical masks as part of the government’s bid to contain the virus.
Apart from the protective equipment, Duque said the President wanted isolation rooms in both public and private hospitals should there be more persons who will be infected.
“To make sure that there will be a regular inventory of isolation rooms not only in the public sector health care facilities but equally important, the private sector isolation rooms must also be ready,” Duque said.
Transport vehicles solely dedicated for the 2019-nCoV patients were also underscored by the President, Duque said.
“To ensure that there will be a dedicated transport vehicle to ferry patients from the communities assuming that there is going to be a community spread,” Duque said.
“That’s why the President has underscored the importance of a dedicated transport vehicle and not use other ambulances for transport for fear of contamination,” he continued.
Furthermore, Duque said Duterte highlighted the need to “scale up” diagnostic capacities of the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) as well as all laboratories of private hospitals for the testing of the novel coronavirus.
The President on Monday night held an emergency meeting with top government officials, including the World Health Organization (WHO), to discuss measures to contain the deadly virus.
As of Tuesday, the death toll has climbed to 425 with the total number of cases pegged at 20,438.
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