DOH monitors illnesses in evacuation centers to prevent outbreak

January 17, 2020

The Department of Health said on Friday it is monitoring the situation in various evacuation centers, particularly in Region IV-A or Calabarzon, to prevent an outbreak amid nearly 700 "cases for consultations" due to various illnesses as a result of the Taal Volcano eruption.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters in an interview in Pasay City that as of Thursday, the DOH recorded 671 cases for consultations in different evacuation centers.

He said the five common diseases encountered were acute respiratory infection because of ashfall, hypertension, diarrhea, skin lesions, and influenza-like illnesses.

"I have instructed our DOH Region IV-A and in the neighboring regions to complement the efforts to reach out to more of our people to ensure sanitation is really worked on. Because without sanitation, outbreak can readily happen," he said.

"We have been on the lookout by way of early detection of outbreaks. And then, of course, the daily reporting of disease surveillance," he added.

Duque said there were cases of hypertension because people do not have their homes.

"So, they are agitated and stressed. And they don't know what is going to happen next. There is so much uncertainty," he said.

He said the DOH, along with the Department of Social Welfare and Development, is also addressing the trauma of those affected by the volcano eruption.

Duque urged the private sector to provide portalets in various evacuation centers.

"Sanitation is what we keep on hammering on, the construction of latrines. The portalets are so expensive. It is quite prohibitive. But we are appealing within the private sector to also send portalets," he said, noting that expenses for each portalet amount to around P2,500 to P3,000 per day.

"So, how many portalets are there? It could be 20 portalets per day. You are talking about 100,000 evacuees right now. Divided by 20. So that is about 5,000 portalets. Multiply it, that's hundreds of millions (of pesos)," he said. 

Duque said there are about 87,000 evacuees in Region IV-A displaced by the volcano eruption. Celerina Monte/DMS