MANILA, Philippines — The government has improved its contact-tracing capabilites, the chief implementer of the Philippines' national policy against COVID-19 said Monday night, adding more tracers are being trained to help find and isolate people who have come into contact with COVID-19 cases.
Presidential peace advicer Carlito Galvez Jr. said at a meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases part of which was aired by government media that the government has continuously been beefing up its corps of contact tracers.
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"As of now, 25,767 contact tracing teams and 227,648 contact tracers," he said in Filipino, adding 43% of those have already been trained.
Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, who has also been designated contact-tracing czar, said in August that the country had — at the time — 15,103 contact tracing teams totaling to 149,043 contact tracers with ten members per team on average.
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The World Health Organization recommends a ratio of one contact tracer for every 800 people. It has also advised governments across the globe to focus on testing, contact tracing, maintaining physical distance, and wearing a mask, which it said were "the basics of public health," instead of waiting for potential vaccines against the pathogen.
Magalong also said in August that the government's coronavirus task force monitors performance indicators for LGUs which include a 1:37 contact tracing ratio for urban areas and 1:30 for rural ones.
LGUs should also have 70% of high-risk contacts traced within 24 hours and 100% of high-risk contacts swabbed.
Galvez said Monday night that close contact ratio has already improved to 1:5 from a previous 1:3. "We will raise that to 1:10, then 1:15 until we reach a ratio of at least 1:20."
He added that the contact tracing teams have been able to trace 94% of a COVID-19 patient's first contacts "within the given time."
RELATED: Contact tracing methods up for revamp after efforts found lacking
The Department of the Interior and Local Government this month started hiring 50,000 contact tracers with funding under the "Bayanihan to Recover as One Act" or Bayanihan 2.
According to a report by The STAR, applicants to be contact tracers must have a bachelor's degree or at least be college level in an allied medical course or criminology course.
Applicants must also be skilled in data gathering and research and documentation.
Contact tracers, who will be paid P18,748 a month as contract hires, will conduct interviews as well as profile and assess COVID-19 cases and their identified close contacts.
They will also refer the close contacts to facilities, conduct enhanced tracing and conduct daily monitoring of these contacts for 14 days. — Jonathan de Santos