Virus-handling orientation
A MEMBER of Zamboanga City’s COVID-19 Core Team, led by the City Health Office under Dulce D. Miravite, conducts an orientation on handling coronavirus cases for private and public hospital workers. Ms. Miravite, in a media briefing Tuesday, said the CHO and other agencies are “taking extra caution and steps” to monitor individuals with travel history to countries with restrictions and areas within the Philippines with confirmed cases of the disease known as Covid-19.
Nurses to be deployed at Davao airport to monitor domestic arrivals
LOCAL GOVERNMENT units (LGUs) in the Davao Region have issued directives to address the potential spread of the coronavirus disease, or Covid-19, following the declaration of a State of Public Health Emergency in the country. In Davao City, the region’s gateway, 14 trained nurses will be deployed at the airport domestic terminal to monitor arriving passengers. The available body scanner at the airport is stationed at the international arrivals section. Bureau of Quarantine regional medical officer Shane M. Ludovice said the nurses will use thermo guns to check the temperature of arriving passengers as well as assess health declaration forms. “The nurses will also evaluate the health declaration of the passengers. If there are findings like signs and symptoms of COVID-19, we will hold the passengers for questioning, evaluate them and if they have travel history, we will ask the City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit or CESU to transfer them to a hospital,” he told the media Monday. The Davao City government has also released a 29-point guideline, which includes a ban on events that draw big crowds as well as prohibiting people from going to city government offices to follow up on transactions. “Clients are required to make phone or email follow-ups. Offices should ensure that clients are promptly attended to in this mode of follow-up,” the guideline states. Davao del Sur Governor Douglas R. Cagas has ordered a “no face mask, no entry” policy at the capitol compound while they are finalizing the detailed directive for the province. The Davao Oriental provincial government has activated its incident command system to implement the response plan, which includes the designation of six isolation rooms at the Davao Oriental Provincial Medical Center. The Davao de Oro and Davao Occidental LGUs have also set up teams and measures to counter the Covid-19 threat. As of Tuesday, Southern Philippines Medical Center head Leopoldo J. Vega announced that all patients admitted for investigation have been found negative for the virus. — Maya M. Padillo and Carmelito Q. Francisco
