The Negros Occidental provincial government has reactivated the Provincial Infectious Disease Action and Control Council (PIDACC) amid the threat of the novel coronavirus (nCoV) outbreak.
Dr. Jessica Fama, medical specialist of the Provincial Health Office (PHO), said on Tuesday the council will be in-charge of the inter-agency collaboration and coordination to address infectious disease threats.
“We agreed to reactivate the PIDACC,” Fama said after the meeting called by Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson with all concerned department and office heads.
Among those who attended were Provincial Health Officer Ernell Tumimbang, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz, and First District Board Member Araceli Somosa, chair of the Provincial Board committee on health.
Fama said Lacson is also set to sign an executive order creating the provincial nCoV task force that will include details of the roles of the local government units, including the barangays, as well as the referral hospitals.
The Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams will also be activated, she said.
Fama said five provincial government-run hospitals, including the Teresita L. Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City, will be capacitated to admit persons under investigation (PUIs).
These facilities will be required to set up isolation rooms and train staff as part of the response.
There will also be dedicated ambulance units of local disaster risk reduction and management units, including two each in the north and two in the south, that will be used to transport patients.
Fama said the Bureau of Quarantine of the Department of Health will also be asked to monitor seaports in the province.
“We will also meet with the local chief executives and the city and municipal health officers to ensure a uniform and standard approach to this problem,” she added.
In Negros Occidental, two male patients tagged as PUIs have been isolated at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital in Bacolod.
These include a 43-year-old Canadian expatriate who has traveled to Taiwan and a 12-year-old with a history of travel to Hong Kong and Macau.
Among the identified persons under monitoring, or PUMs, are five students in Talisay City, who have been placed under quarantine in one residence for 14 days.
PUMs have no symptoms of the nCoV but have traveled to China in the past two weeks. (Nanette Guadalquiver ndb via pna)