JAIL facilities in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) are closely monitored by the Department of Health (DOH) for possible coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak following three recent cases involving persons deprived of liberty (PDL).
Karen Lonogan, senior health program officer of DOH-CAR, said the monitoring is a preventive measure against the possible spread of the virus.
"We are actually looking at our PDLs who are in close settings, and with the issuance of DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government) and other attached agencies on visitors entering jail facilities for them to undergo testing prior to their entry and before they leave. We are now under extra precautionary measures when it comes to them because just in case one of them is positive and have entered the jail facility, the possibility of an outbreak will be there," Lonogan said.
At least two PDLs were infected with coronavirus in Baguio and one in Apayao Province.
Aside from PDLs, DOH-CAR is also monitoring personnel of the Police Regional Office (PRO)-Cordillera who are at risk from infection from newly assigned police personnel coming from other regions with high cases of Covid-19.
"We are currently looking at our uniformed personnel who are mobile, including our healthcare workers who are very much in touch with our cases. We just came out with our report which we provided our Regional Inter-Agency Task Force or RIATF with some recommendations because we are looking at the factor on how our uniformed personnel will be included in the increase in cases. We are hoping to meet again with our RIATF to determine the best policy that we can release to help mitigate the possible increase in cases," Lonogan said.
DOH-CAR is also closely monitoring banks and groceries after the spike of Covid-19 cases coming from these sectors.
"If we look at the data that we have when it comes to the financial sector, more of those infected are the security guards, the messengers, the drivers so these are the mobile people while we have lesser cases of bank tellers or bank employees. The bank employees that were tested positive are those considered as Authorized Persons Outside Residence or Apors who cross borders, those that go home to other regions and return after a week and this is one of the factors that have helped increase the number of cases," Lonogan added.
DOH-CAR earlier projected the peak of Covid-19 cases in the region mid-September based on the Feasibility Analysis of Syndromic Surveillance using Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler for Early Detection of Diseases (Fassster) app.
The DataCollect app gathers daily data from hospitals and stakeholders such as essential resources and supplies, availability of hospital beds, isolation rooms, ICU beds and mechanical ventilators, and human resource needs.
The application is also be able to accurately calculate the projected need of PPEs, and link to its logistics offices for delivery of supplies which will facilitate easier and faster tracking of reports between DOH offices.
