MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte vowed to source out funds for the purchase of high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) devices which health experts recommended to help provide relief to COVID-19 patients, Malacañang said Thursday.
In a televised Palace briefing, Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said Duterte, during a meeting in Malacañang on Wednesday night, had an “internal consultation” with experts from the University of the Philippines (UP) regarding the COVID-19 situation in the country.
Roque said the President asked the experts about the best potential care for coronavirus patients.
“Ang lumabas po ang pinakamabuti ay ‘yung tinatawag natin na, hindi po siya ventilator eh, high-flow nasal cannula. ‘Yan pala po ang pinakamabuti at hindi ang ventilators,” Roque said.
(According to the experts, the best care for patients is what we call, it’s not a ventilator, high-flow nassal cannula. That is the best possible care and not the ventilators.)
“Kaya nga lang po ito ay manufactured in New Zealand at konti lang ang supply. So ang sabi niya, hahanap tayo ng pera, bibili tayo ng pinakamaraming kaya nating bilhin na high-flow nassal cannula,” he added.
(However, it is manufactured in New Zealand and the supply is limited. So he said, we will look for funds and we will buy as many as we can.)
During the meeting, Duterte also asked the experts if they think the government can afford to further reopen the economy despite the continued increase in COVID-19 infection.
Roque said the UP experts agreed with the reopening of the economy provided that testing, isolation, and treatment will be expanded.
Duterte extended until July 31 the general community quarantine over Metro Manila and other areas in the country. The majority of the country is now under the most lenient modified general community quarantine except for Cebu City which is currently under the stricter modified enhanced community quarantine due to a spike of cases in the city.
To date, there are 58,850 COVID-19 cases nationwide, of whom nearly half, or 29,015, are in Metro Manila.
Meanwhile, 20,976 patients have so far recovered and 1,614 have died.