Davao del Norte: The government should identify people stricken with the novel corona virus (COVID-19) as part of the stringent measures to contain the spread of the highly contagious respiratory disease in the country.
Rep. Alan Dujali of 2nd District of Davao del Norte made this recommendation to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) in a bid to help strengthen the government’s efforts to curb the pandemic.
In his letter, Dujali noted that identifying infected persons will further boost the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine declared by President Duterte on March 16.
“While I believe that the quarantine measures has, so far, been effective in addressing our current public health concern, it is my humble recommendation that we further strengthen it by implementing strategies aimed at informing the public, on a regular basis of the identities of the persons who have already been tested positive for the virus, as well as of those who have a probable chance of having contracted it,” Dujali said in a letter to the IATF-EID, referring to those who are considered as persons under investigation (PUIs) and persons under monitoring (PUMs).
The task force headed by the Department of Health is at the forefront of the government’s drive to curb the spread of the virus grappling the whole world.
To date, the Philippines ranks second in Southeast Asia with the highest number of confirmed cases with 2,084 next to Malaysia with 2,766.
Dujali enumerated the two objectives of his recommendation.
These are: to create an effective deterrent to such persons from violating the quarantine measure and hospital protocols; and to strengthen the mandatory reporting provided under Republic Act 11332, or the Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act.
He warned the number is expected to rise next month should the present lockdown fails.
Citing recent statistics, the Davao lawmaker said the infection will reach its peak in middle of April with around 2,500 active cases in Metro Manila alone.
The cumulative number of infected cases during this period might rise to between 6,000 to 7,000, according to a recent study made by a prestigious university, he added.
As such, Dujali said the government should implement a regular public disclosure of people stricken with the disease as well as PUIs and PUMs through the Department of Health and its authorized counterparts.
“As we have seen in the media, there are many different personalities who have been tested positive with the virus, and yet have voluntarily publicly disclosed such fact,” he noted.
“If we go further by allowing our government to publicly disclose the identities of persons infected with the virus, the PUIs and PUMs, I believe we can make a more positive impact towards effectively slowing down the spread of the virus.”
Dujali said such public disclosure of information through an authorized entity such as the health department is legal since RA 11332 provides a clear exception to Republic Act 10173, also known as the Data Privacy Law on the accessibility of data.
“Dissemination of such information to the public by the DOH and its local counterparts is not prohibited, yet actually mandated, so long as they are gathered from the official disease surveillance and response systems that are already [build] in place,” he explained.
One of the cornerstones of RA 11332 is mandatory reporting which is the obligatory reporting of a condition to local or state health authorities, as required for notifiable diseases, epidemics or public health events of public health concern, he added, citing the provisions under that act.
“Therefore, given that our country already has a legal framework that provides a legal basis for the public disclosure of identities of persons infected with the corona virus, as well as the PUIs and PUMs, the only thing that remains for us to do is to implement it,” Dujali said.