CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (PIA)--"Kailangan natin dito (Here we need) faster testing, faster tracing, faster isolation and of course vaccination."
In the Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE) Team visit to northern Mindanao, July 19, Department of Health (DOH) Sec. Francisco Duque III said while the Local Government Units (LGUs) of Cagayan de Oro and Gingoog are doing good with the Prevent-Detect-Isolate-Treat-Reintegrate (PDITR+) strategy, there is now a need to be aggressive on COVID-19 response, especially with the existence of the Delta variant.
Duque stressed that the LGUs, under the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) from July 16-31, must do the early detection by ensuring that there is an active case finding being done by the city or municipal health officer or the epidemiology surveillance unit officer together with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
"You do your RT-PCR [reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction] testing being still your gold standard. We do not encourage you to use antigen test for the simple reason that you cannot do genomic sequencing when you do antigen testing, it’s still RT-PCR," the secretary said.
After the case finding, LGUs are urged to mobilize their surveillance mechanisms for influenza-like illness as well as their hospital surveillance system for Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) to monitor possible transmission of COVID-19 particularly the Delta variant.
Contact tracing must also be intensified with the 1:15 standard for an adequate ratio. The contact tracer to population must be 1:800.
Duque urged the regional directors of national line agencies to guide the LGUs on the standard ratios to ensure effective contact tracing.
"If you can resort to digital contact tracing, if you have a mature connectivity and technology, and if you complement this with your manual contact tracing, I see no reason why you will not be able to cut the chain of transmission," he added.
Doing so, LGUs will have the opportunity to crush the clustering of cases in various communities where COVID-19 infection has been reported.
