Screen grab from philhealth.gov.ph
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Health Insurance announced Tuesday that patients hospitalized due to measles may avail themselves of PhilHealth benefits.
In a news forum, PhilHealth president and CEO Alexander Padilla said that patients confined even due to simple measles cases are now covered by PhilHealth following the outbreak of the disease in many parts of the country.
According to him, measles was previously removed from its list of benefits because there had been almost no hospital admissions due to simple measles.
“But those with complications due to measles such as pneumonia, dehydration and encephalitis have been continuously covered by PhilHealth,” he said.
“Since there is an outbreak of the disease, we decided to revive this month the simple measles case rate package, but it has to involve hospital confinement,” added PhilHealth spokesperson Dr. Israel Francis Pargas.
Pargas said patients will be covered for P7,000 and up to P32,000 if it involves complications from the disease. He added that the coverage will be implemented retroactively, which means those who were admitted even from January 1 to 14 can file for PhilHealth claims.
Meanwhile, almost 800 suspected cases of measles have been reported in Metro Manila for the first 11 days of the month, according to the Department of Health.
Based on the DOH-National Capital report, there were 760 suspected cases reported from January 1 to 11, 2014 compared with only 10 cases during the same period last year.
Most (272) cases were in Manila City, followed by Parañaque City with 138 cases.
Other cities with significant increase in cases were Quezon, Taguig, Navotas and Las Piñas.
The DOH report said clustering of suspected measles cases has been noted in the cities of Caloocan, Las Piñas, Malabon, Mandaluyong, Manila, Muntinlupa, Navotas, Parañaque, Pasay, Quezon, Taguig, and Valenzuela.
Three deaths from suspect measles cases were also reported during the period, the report added.
Thirty-nine percent of those affected belonged to the 1-4 years age-group, the DOH report said, adding that 9 percent or 67 victims had history of previous measles vaccination.
A total of 1,724 cases of measles have been reported from Jan. 1 to Dec, 14, 2013 nationwide, including 21 deaths.
The DOH is to launch in September a nationwide mass vaccination campaign to eliminate measles in the country.
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