How are funds to fight A/H1N1 flu being used?

BEHIND THE SCENES
Alfred P. Dizon

Will somebody from the Baguio General Hospital please explain why the BGH is charging P4,000 for a swab to determine if one has A (H1N!) virus?

A Camp John Hay employee complained that he didn’t proceed with the swab check because of the exorbitant price. What is it with a swap that it is too expensive? For laymen like us, our unspecialized minds think it is just scraping something from the tongue with a thin strip of wood or something after which the saliva is checked for virus or bacteria.

Before this issue gets blown up in the media particularly by our friends in broadcast, I suggest BGH officials should come up with an explanation. Some of our colleagues tried to talk to BGH officials but they have reportedly remained mum on the matter.

You see, what is perplexing is that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has reportedly released P150 million budget for the country's fight against the influenza A (H1N1) disease wherein the BGH was supposed to have received from in the fight against the disease. If the BGH received its share of the fund, should it still charge P4,000 for a swab?

According to deputy presidential spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo in a press briefing last week in Malacanang, there was enough funds to combat the dreaded virus which has already infected scores of people nationwide...

Fajardo said the budget was in place and should Health Secretary Francisco Duque III ask for more assistance from Malacañang, the national coffers and the regular budget of the Department of Health could be used to combat the disease.

”The budget which the President released covers expenses of hospitals monitoring cases under observation (CUOs), laboratory expenses, training of personnel on A/H1N1, personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gas masks and gowns, and stockpiling of Tamiflu medicine,” Fajardo said. She said director Yolanda Oliveros of the National Center for Disease and Prevention and Control Center (NCDPC) handled the logistics against A/H1N1.

President Arroyo directed the DOH last week "to do everything within its means" to contain the spread of the influenza A/H1N1 virus, which had forced school authorities to postpone for a week the opening of classes in private schools, colleges and universities.

Ms Arroyo also asked the National Disaster Coordinating Council to help the DOH in preventing the spread of the flu virus and educating the people on what steps to take in case the disease contracted them.

This, as DOH Secretary Francisco T. Duque III urged school authorities across the country to continue reporting to their respective local government executives any unusual occurrence of flu-like symptoms among their students especially those who travelled last summer to countries affected with A (H1N1).

Duque made this call as he reported 23 more confirmed mild A (H1N1) cases that are related to the cluster of schools that have already voluntarily suspended their classes due to the virus. These schools include De La Salle University Taft, East Asia College, De La Salle-College of St. Benilde, St. Andrews School Parañaque, and Ateneo de Manila High School. The new cases bring the total to 77 mild A (H1N1) confirmed cases. Twenty-three of these 77 mild cases have been discharged.

Duque said increase in cases was due to contact tracing by the DOH. Duque said the 23 new confirmed mild cases are responding well to treatments. He added there is still no community spread yet as the new cases were all traced to one case that earlier caught the virus during a travel to an A (H1N1) affected country.

The 23 new confirmed cases include 19 Filipinos and 4 foreigners. There are 18 males and 5 females with an age range of 8-49 years old. Seven of the new confirmed cases have a history of travel. The said cases traveled to the US and Japan.

Since May 1, the DOH monitored a total of 667 Cases Under Observation (CUOs). Of these, 77 were positive A (H1N1) cases, 85 have pending laboratory results, and 505 were negative and have been discarded. There were 68 new CUOs reported on Wednesday. In a report, the World Health Organization identified 25,288 cases and 139 deaths from 73 reporting countries.

The issue now: Is the DOH judiciously utilizing fund to combat the disease or are some health personnel doing hanky panky with the money? This considering that people are questioning where the funds went or how these are being used like in the case of the BGH.