DOH infrastructure budget to finance CDC, vaccine institute

MANILA, Philippines — A budget has been allotted for the establishment of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that will serve as a reliable agency in times of pandemics, according to the Department of Health (DOH).

“In support of the directives of the President, we are going to have the Philippine Center for Disease Control, whereby we are going to have high-level technical capacity, where we will be hiring experts … (and) scientists so that we can better manage emerging and re-emerging diseases,” DOH officer-in-charge Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said at the post-State of the Nation Address (SONA) economic briefing held at the Philippine International Convention Center yesterday.

Vergeire also bared a plan to have the epidemiology and surveillance units all over the country strengthened.

“We would like to base our decisions on evidence and data. That is already part of the budget that we have proposed to the Department of Budget and Management for the DOH, so that we will be able to use science as basis for actions for our local government units.”

Senate Bill 2505 or the Philippine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Act will establish the Centers for Health Statistics, Surveillance and Epidemiology, Health Evidence and Reference Laboratories under the DOH.

A counterpart bill at the House of Representatives was approved in July last year.

The DOH said the CDC plays a crucial role in the country’s goal to move out of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure health care for all.

At the same time, Vergeire said they are gearing toward the setting up of public laboratories in the country that will mainly deal with diseases like COVID-19.

“We need to facilitate early diagnosis by setting up our public health laboratories. We have a lot of laboratories in the country, but these are public health laboratories that will be focused mainly on the various emerging and re-emerging diseases such as COVID-19,” she said.

In relation to this, the DOH official said they would like to address how the country can be self-sufficient in terms of logistics and commodities.

“We all know that our vaccines for COVID-19, for example, came internationally. We don’t have our local source, so in line also with the directives of the President, we are in support of working with the Department of Science and Technology to set up the Virology Institute of the Philippines whereby eventually, we can locally manufacture, such as vaccines for specific infectious diseases,” she said.

Meanwhile, the DOH said it would abide by President Marcos’ statement that the government would no longer implement lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19.