Philippines gets nearly $4-M health assistance from US amid COVID-19 outbreak
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government received nearly $4 million or approximately P200 million in health assistance from the US in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A report released by the US Department of State stated that Washington has released approximately $18.3 million in emergency health and humanitarian assistance to ASEAN member states as of March 26.
"Nearly $4 million in health assistance will help the Philippines government prepare laboratory systems, activate case-finding and event-based surveillance, support technical experts for response and preparedness, risk communication, infection prevention and control, and more," the report read.
Among its ASEAN neighbors, the Philippines acquired the largest amount of financial assistance from the US in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
It also indicated that the US Department of Defense's Defense Reduction Agency also provided locally-sourced personal protective equipment (PPEs), training, exercises and laboratory equipment and materials to the Philippines.
According to the report, the Philippines has received more than $582 million in health assistance and nearly $4.5 billion in total assistance from the US in the past 20 years.
As of Tuesday, the Philippines has recorded 2,084 COVID-19 cases with 88 deaths.
The US also provided financial assistance to Cambodia ($2 million), Indonesia ($2.3 million), Laos (nearly $2 million), Myanmar ($3.8 million), Thailand ($1.2 million) and Vietnam (nearly $3 million).
The US has yet to provide the request of Brunei and Malaysia for respirators and PPEs after US domestic demands are met.
"Our country continues to be the single largest health and humanitarian donor for both long-term development and capacity building efforts with partners, and emergency response efforts in the face of recurrent crises," the US Department of State said.
A total of 40,057 deaths have been recorded across the world, including 29,305 in Europe, with Italy registering 12,428, followed by Spain with 8,189 and China with 3,305.
Since the virus emerged in China in December, 803,645 global infections have been confirmed, more than half of them in Europe, which has 440,928.;
The United States and Canada has 172,071 cases and 3,243 deaths and Asia has 108,421 cases with 3,882 deaths. — with Agence France-Presse
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
- Latest
- Trending
