<![CDATA[Coronavirus: Philippines receives new testing kits, prioritises pneumonia patients]>
A much-needed influx of coronavirus testing kits into the Philippines will be used to test existing pneumonia patients first in a bid to prevent the country's health care system from "being overwhelmed", according to an infectious diseases specialist.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that the Philippines only had 2,000 testing kits left for the Covid-19 disease caused by the virus, but the government this week received an additional 2,000 kits from China and 500 from South Korea. Both countries' governments have promised to donate thousands more, as has Jack Ma, founder of South China Morning Post owner Alibaba Group Holding.
A domestically developed kit has also been produced by the Philippine Genome Centre and the National Institutes of Health and approved for immediate testing by the country's Food and Drug Administration.
The additional kits will mostly be used to test vulnerable pneumonia patients, said Dr Edsel Salvana, who leads the technical advisory group of the Philippines' Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
A health worker carries a sealed box containing Covid-19 specimen in Muntinlupa city, south of Manila, on March 13. Photo: EPA alt=A health worker carries a sealed box containing Covid-19 specimen in Muntinlupa city, south of Manila, on March 13. Photo: EPA
"At this stage of the epidemic, in order to protect our frontline health care workers, we are assuming that every pneumonia patient is a Covid-19 patient," he said. "We are already seeing a surge in admissions [for pneumonia] and we need to be ready to handle these cases as they come."
There have been numerous complaints in the Philippines of patients with flu-like symptoms being denied testing for Covid-19, and Salvana confirmed that people with mild symptoms will continue to either be sent home to self-isolate or to local government quarantine centres.
"They can be tested later when we have capacity," he said. "This strategy is two pronged " decongest the hospitals so there are fewer milder cases that demand testing, and ensure that severe and critical cases are promptly diagnosed. While testing is not being abandoned, we need to put resources into protecting our doctors and taking care of very sick patients with ventilator support and treatments for complications."
The plan, he said, "hinges on early intervention because we cannot afford to exceed the capacity of our hospitals and we need to protect our health care workers".
President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday placed the country under a "state of calamity" to help government units implement a lockdown aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus.
The state of calamity, which will be in effect for six months, would allow government units to release funds and dispatch resources faster to ensure "critical, urgent and appropriate disaster response aid and measures in a timely manner to curtain and eliminate the threat of Covid-19".
There is about one hospital bed for every 230,000 people in the Philippines, according to 2018 estimate by the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism.
Philippine Health Secretary Francisco Duque welcomed the domestically developed coronavirus kits, which were the brainchild of Dr Raul Destura form the University of the Philippines, but was quick to caution that they were not like do-it-yourself pregnancy tests.
The test kit developed by a team lead by Dr Raul Destura of the University of the Philippines. Photo: AFP alt=The test kit developed by a team lead by Dr Raul Destura of the University of the Philippines. Photo: AFP
Salvana, who is also director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the National Institutes of Health, further warned that "special training" was needed to collect samples for testing.
Since very few laboratories can test for Covid-19, "subnational labs across the country will be established," Salvana said.
Research projects are also underway to study the disease and track its main modes of transmission, he said.
The Philippine government has insisted it has enough money for virus test kits, as well as additional hospital equipment and protective gear for frontline medical staff " despite the Department of Health being told recently that only about half the funds it had asked for to fight the virus were available.
On Tuesday, the government announced a package of measures worth 27.1 billion pesos (US$522.9 million) to combat the outbreak, including 3.1 billion pesos for acquiring test kits and 3.2 billion pesos to support workers hit by a lockdown of Luzon island aimed at containing the spread of the disease.
About 14 billion pesos is also set to go to the tourism sector, which some members of Congress questioned, with France Castro of ACT Teachers Party List asking why the government did not just give workers 10,000 pesos each instead.
Luzon is the industrial and financial heartland of the Philippines where about two-thirds of the population live. It also contains Metro Manila, home to an estimated 3 million "informal settlers", according to medical anthropologist Michael Tan.
Duterte on Monday appealed in a public address to "the rich ... industry leaders" like MVP Group chief Manuel Pangilinan, the brothers Jaime Augusto and Fernando Zobel of the Ayala Group, the Sy family who own the SM Group, and the Gokongwei family of the Robinsons Group, to "kindly help" ease the plight of their workers.
A health worker uses a thermal scanner on a man with a high temperature near Quezon City in the Philippines on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua alt=A health worker uses a thermal scanner on a man with a high temperature near Quezon City in the Philippines on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua
It was a startling about-face for Duterte who has regularly upbraided "the oligarchs" as "greedy" and "thieves" and in January said, "there are rich people in the Philippines who are crazy. They are the ones we should kill. Just wait for my signal."
The tycoons responded positively. Pangilinan said the MVP Group would continue paying the employee salaries and benefits during the month-long lockdown, while SM Group said it would fund the distribution of local test kits. Ayala Group, meanwhile, has put in place flexible work-from-home arrangements for it employees.
In his public address, Duterte announced that people would see him out and about amid the lockdown, and he was later photographed without a mask on at a military checkpoint set up to prevent those outside Manila from coming in.
President Rodrigo Duterte pictured visiting a military checkpoint on Tuesday amid the coronavirus lockdown in Manila. Photo: Presidential Security Group/Presidential Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy alt=President Rodrigo Duterte pictured visiting a military checkpoint on Tuesday amid the coronavirus lockdown in Manila. Photo: Presidential Security Group/Presidential Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy
Human rights lawyer Antonio La Vina described the government's implementation of the Luzon-wide lockdown as "messy".
He said that "while supporting community quarantine, I am afraid that its implementation has been messy. I teach a disaster management course at Ateneo School of Government and tell students that a good disaster response requires solid planning, which include the imagining of scenarios."
One example of this messiness is the fact that food processors in the area affected by the lockdown have been asked to continue operating but their suppliers were being blocked from entering, Jose Ortiz-Luis Jnr, president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, said in an interview with CNN Philippines.
Karlo Nograles, secretary of the cabinet asked for understanding and described such problems as "kinks" to be ironed out.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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