Over 15,000 trained for contact tracing—Duterte report

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health( DOH) has so far trained over 15,000 individuals to conduct contact tracing efforts as the government moves to arrest the country’s lack of contact tracers in its fight against the novel coronavirus.

Contact tracers are health workers who track down the close contacts of people who have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2—the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

In his 11th report to Congress on the use of his emergency powers to address the COVID-19 pandemic, President Duterte said the DOH has deployed 135 contact tracing specialists to 61 hospitals and retained the “off-site” technical point persons deployed for all Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Units (RESUs) and all National Capital Region City Epidemiology and Surveillance Units.

To increase the existing pool of contact traces in the country, the DOH also conducts batches of training of trainers on contact tracing and ensures that all RESUs have at least one trained trainer on contact tracing.

“As of 04 June 2020, a total of 15,386 contact tracing team members have been trained,” Duterte said in his report

Previously, DOH spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said the Philippines is short of about 94,000 COVID-19 contact tracers to achieve the World Health Organization’s (WHO) benchmark of one contact tracer per 800 people.

The DOH earlier said the country has around 38,000 contact tracers.

There are currently 22,474 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country, including 4,637 recoveries and 1,011 deaths.