‘KNOW YOUR ENEMY’ | Philippines allocates P362M for improved efforts versus new COVID-19 variants

February 5, 2021 , 03:14 PM

(February 5, 2021) – President Rodrigo Duterte has approved a total funding of P362 million to boost the genomic bio-surveillance efforts of the Department of Health (DOH), a senior administration official said on Thursday, improving the country’s response amid emerging variants of COVID-19.

Cabinet secretary Karlo Nograles said this allocated budget will enable the DOH to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the virus and its mutations.

“We must know our enemy,” said Nograles said, quoting Sun Tzu in the popular book Art of War. “Genomic bio-surveillance, according to the Department of Health, is a critical input for our national vaccine deployment program as (it will provide a) better understanding of the virus and its possible mutations.”

Health officials have continued to conduct surveillance efforts to monitor the presence in the country of the more contagious COVID-19 variant originally detected in the United Kingdom. But a global shortage of reagents necessary for testing have hampered local efforts, admitted DOH undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire last Monday.

Vergeire said they have requested P362 million funding from the Department of Budget and Management to procure a one-year supply of reagents and testing kits. It will benefit the Philippine Genome Center (PGC), the University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health, and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.

Only the PGC was tapped by the DOH to run tests to determine if the positive COVID-19 samples were also positive of the more transmissible variant. But it was only able to test 48 samples each week given the limited supply of reagents globally, far from the typical 750 samples expected weekly.

“Global shortage has affected the process that we have. What we’re going to do right now is to have advance procurement,” said Vergeire. “(We are doing this) so we are insured and we can sustain the genome sequencing for this year.”

At least 17 cases of the new COVID-19 variant have been recorded in the Philippines, most of which are from Bontoc, Mountain Province. The PGC is expected to release soon the results of the latest batch of samples they examined over the previous week.

Through this additional funding, the public could expect that the government would step up efforts to accurately monitor the health crisis, especially with the arrival this month of 117,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer-BioNTech through the COVAX facility.

“A better understanding of the virus and its possible mutations will enable us to implement a more responsive vaccination program, execute other existing health interventions and prepare for future pandemics,” said Nograles.

(Beatrice Puente/PM)

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