MANILA, Philippines – The number of deaths among health workers who have been infected with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has slowed down after they were given adequate personal protective equipment (PPEs), a government official admitted on Tuesday.
Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. made this report during President Rodrigo Duterte’s late night briefing.
According to Galvez, this progress was seen in the latest Department of Health (DOH) reports, which showed that the death toll among health workers, now at 35, only increased once within the month of May.
“Ito pong PPE, ito po ang isang malaking issue natin dati, dahil kasi nakita po natin na dati, mahigit 17 doctors ang namatay. Pero po no’ng nagprocure po ang DOH ng P1.8 billion na PPE, nandito na po sa atin ngayon ‘yon,” Galvez explained to Duterte.
(With regards to the PPEs, this has been one of the major issues before, because we had 17 doctors who had died. But then the DOH procured P1.8 billion worth of PPEs, which are now being used.)
“Kung titignan po natin, mula no’ng nagbigay po tayo ng PPE, wala na pong namamatay na doktor since May, I believe since May, I’d like to report to you that we were able to reserve our frontliners, ‘yon po ang guidance niyo po sa amin, na we have to preserve our doctors and our medical personnel,” he added.
(If we take a look a this, since we started handing out PPEs, no doctor has died since May. I’d like to report to you that we were able to reserve our frontliners, because that was your guidance unto us, to preserve our doctors and medical personnel.)
DOH data shows that there are 2,315 health workers who contracted the disease, 1,306 of which are considered active cases, while 35 have died, and 974 have recovered.
But even if local transmission among health workers have partly subsided, this 17.88 percent infection rate is still one of the highest in the Western Pacific region, a fact that worried even the World Health Organization, noting that the infection rate it is still way above the 2 to 3 percent infection rates among health workers in the Western Pacific region, which includes China, the origin of the disease
Previously, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) asked government to protect medical practitioners, because they would be vulnerable to the sickness if left on their own.
AHW in particular proposed for the creation of measures that may address the issue of high infection rates, like mass testing among health workers regardless whether they are exhibiting symptoms, hiring of more nurses and hospital staff to help worn out staffers, and the procurement of more PPEs.
As of Tuesday, the Philippines has recorded 12,942 COVID-19 cases, 837 of which have died while and 2,843 have recovered. Worldwide, over 4.812 million persons have been infected, with 318,611 deaths and 1.792 million recoveries.