MANILA – Instead of hiring 130,000 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) contact tracers, the Department of Health (DOH) should simply tap the services of local government workers, according to Senate President Vicente Sotto III.
“It will be wiser and more practical to divert the P11.7 billion for the treatment of patients. We need funds to treat our sick kababayans,” Sotto said in a statement on Monday.
He stressed that the fund should instead be used to procure medicine and medical equipment to boost efforts in treating those afflicted with the disease, and supporting the medical workers who tend to them.
“What I am suggesting is for the DOH to be more prudent on how the country’s funds are being used,” he added. “You cannot just deploy anyone to do the job. Contact tracing can only be effective if you use people who are trained in investigation.”
Four months since the Philippines registered its first COVID-19 case, the government has yet to reach the ideal ratio of 1 contact tracer for every 800 individuals.
As of May 27, the Philippines has only 38,000 contact tracers, far from the 126,000 benchmark set by the World Health Organization for the country.
The number of coronavirus cases in the Philippines breached the 18,000-mark after the DOH recorded 862 new confirmed cases on Sunday. The number of individuals who have recovered reached 3,909 while the number of deaths stood at 957./PN
