Neda approves P5-B quarantine, testing facilities in airports, hospitals

MANILA, Philippines — The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) has approved the Department of Health’s (DOH) proposed P5.09 billion emergency response project which would, among others, establish coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing and quarantine facilities in six major airports across the country.

Neda’s Investment Coordination Committee also approved the establishment of 21 first-line decontamination facilities at international airports in selected areas in the Philippines, according to President Rodrigo Duterte’s fourth report to Congress.

The P5.09 billion project will also  equip and enable national laboratories and sub-national public health laboratories to handle COVID-19 cases, refurbish and establish negative pressure isolation rooms in approximately 70 DOH and 85 provincial public hospitals and set up 450 isolation tents across the country.

The said project would also cover the provision of personal protective equipment, COVID-19 test kits, diagnostic and life support equipment like ventilators, oxygen machines, cardiac monitors, infusion pumps, portable x-ray machines, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) equipment and dialysis machines as well as ambulances.

In the Philippines, a total of 6,459 have so far been confirmed.

Four hundred twenty eight patients have died while 613 others have recovered.

GSG