WHO urges Philippines to increase healthcare capacity as COVID-19 cases rise
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government should continue increasing the country’s healthcare capacity as it deals with a surge in COVID-19 infections, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
Dr. Takeshi Kasai, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific, stressed the need for more warm bodies to treat people infected with COVID-19.
“What is important is actually not just the beds, but to make sure there [are] doctors and nurses, and also there is sufficient equipment and also support to those working very hard,” Kasai said in a briefing.
The sharp increase in COVID-19 cases, partly driven by the hyper contagious Delta variant, is putting more pressure on hospitals, which are already battling staff shortages.
Groups of health workers also threatened to resign over unpaid allowances and poor working conditions.
COVID-19 vaccination
Kasai said more than 95% of health workers in the Philippines and 46% of senior citizens have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
“The government is putting significant effort in vaccinations,” he said.
Dr. Socorro Escalante, WHO Western Pacific essential medicines and health technologies coordinator, also said that the country has demonstrated “quite good capacity” in rolling out vaccines across the archipelago.
“The vaccination rollout in the Philippines is going quite well,” she said. “We have seen they have a very good plan of ensuring that when vaccines are made available to the country, they are distributed to local government units as soon as possible.”
Only 12.1% of the country’s 109 million population have completed COVID-19 vaccination since the rollout began in March. Meanwhile, 16.05% of Filipinos have received partial protection.
Suppressing Delta
The WHO Western Pacific head said the Delta variant is testing public health systems worldwide. The variant is also invading more households due to its higher transmissibility.
“Delta’s higher transmissibility means clusters of cases are quickly leading to bigger outbreaks, especially in high risk settings known as the 3Cs: closed spaces, crowded places and close contact settings,” Kasai said.
“Even with all our best efforts, it now seems clear that globally, the virus will not disappear at least not in the near future,” he added.
To contain the spread of the Delta variant, WHO officials urged governments detect community transmission early, implement stronger public health and social measures, and ramp up vaccination efforts.
“We know lockdown alone cannot really, really reduce transmission. It is very important to identify and know where infections are occurring and suppress that,” Kasai said.
The Philippines has so far reported 1.88 million COVID-19 cases, including 32,000 deaths, since the pandemic began.
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