WHO worried in LGU's poor compliance with DOH protocols

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday said the local government units’ “poor compliance” with protocols set by the Department of Health (DOH) is a “worrying situation.”

Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the WHO representative to the Philippines, lauded the DOH guidelines on managing COVID-19 cases and implementing quarantine protocols. She said the system was “very good” during the regular Laging Handa briefing.

However, Abeyasinghe pointed out that compliance with the guidelines “does not seem to be universally good.”

“The DOH issued very good guidelines in managing positive cases, how to quarantine them, but the implementation in local government units is different,” Abeyasinghe said.

“We see poor compliance with guidelines, we see [the] number of [COVID-19] cases increasing, and this is actually becoming a worrying situation,” Abeyasinghe added.

The WHO official also said the country should invest and strengthen its contact tracing measures to minimize the health and economic impact of the pandemic.

“What we are advocating is that the DOH and the government invest in expanding testing capacity and contact tracing so we can isolate and prevent further transmission,” he said.

“Unfortunately, this aspect of Philippine response needs strengthening,” Abeyasinghe said.

According to Abeyasinghe, the country’s contact tracing efforts had improved in the last month, “but it is not keeping pace with the expansion of testing capacity.”

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While the Philippines testing capacity is already 60,000 COVID-19 tests per day, the actual COVID-19 tests done daily is just around 15,000 due to a lack of laboratory supplies.

NTF Deputy Chief Implementer and testing czar Vince Dizon earlier said the government targets to conduct 10 million tests in the next eight to 10 months.

“[Now] that we have the labs, we have now 68 labs, we have the capacity, we have the supplies, we should, and we can now expand [testing] to other segments of the population that are important, that need to be tested,” he said.

The government would specifically expand the COVID-19 tests to on-medical front liners and those working in critical economic zones.

Dizon said the expanded testing would include police officers, soldiers, supermarket workers, sari-sari store vendors, and street vendors as some of the non-medical front liners.

As of June 29, the Philippines has 36,438 COVID-19 cases, 9,956 recoveries, and 1,255 deaths.