Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA
MANILA, Philippines — The Quezon City government will be providing cash aid of up to P200,000 to villages with the highest count of identified possible carriers of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to heighten case surveillance in the community.
“The reward is for those barangay that will be able to report suspect or probable cases in the community. Kailangan po nila mag-active case finding or active surveillance. The idea is to find symptomatic cases in the community as fast as we can,” Rolly Cruz, City Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit (CESU) chief, said in a Viber message to INQUIRER.net.
“Barangays may have zero active cases, but it does not equate to zero cases. Baka lang wala po na de-detect (Maybe we have not detected any cases yet),” Cruz added.
He also underscored that active search of probable and suspect cases for COVID-19 will allow the local government to immediately isolate and treat the patients.
“Unahan natin ang virus through active case finding. Lagi natin ipatupad ang contain-isolate-quarantine-treat kahit suspected case pa lang,” he said.
(Let us be a step ahead of the virus through active case finding. Let us always implement the contain-isolate-quarantine-treat even if is is just a suspected case.)
The Quezon City Public Information Office said the village with below 10,000 population will receive P50,000, the village with 10,000 to 50,000 population will receive P100,000 while the village with 50,000 and above population will get P200,000.
According to the Department of Health guidelines, a person is considered a suspect if he or she is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or have had contact with a confirmed case or visited a place with local transmission of SARS-CoV-2, causative agent of COVID-19.
A person is tagged as a probable case if they underwent a lab test but it is still inconclusive.
In another statement, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte said the cash incentives will encourage villages to search for probable and suspect cases which will help in decreasing the number of average cases in the city.
“We’ve already seen the flattening of the curve based on the latest findings by a noted research group. We hope to sustain it further through this initiative,” Belmonte said.
On Wednesday, UP OCTA Research Group said Quezon City recorded a decline in the average number of COVID-19 cases for three weeks.
As of Sept. 9, Quezon City logged 13,927 total cases of the respiratory disease, including 10,482 recoveries and 452 deaths.