The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council has assumed the functions of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19.
“To streamline the government’s pandemic response, the duties of the NTF will now be transferred to the NDRRMC,” the NTF said in a statement Wednesday.
“We advise that all queries regarding NTF be directed to the NDRRMC, and questions about the vaccination program be addressed to the DOH,” it added.
In a radio interview, NDRRMC executive director Ricardo Jalad said they are prepared to take on the functions of the NTF.
“We are very ready because the NDRRMC and the NTF are more or less composed of the same agencies, and the NTF chairperson is the NDRRMC chairperson too,” he said.
Meanwhile, an infectious disease expert said local hospitals should be prepared for the entry of the Marburg virus, a highly infectious disease similar to the deadly Ebola virus.
Dr. Rontgene Solante said the government should implement the same policies on how to handle, contain, and prevent the Marburg virus, just like what it did during the Ebola scare in 2016.
“For me, the possibility of the Marburg virus entering our country is not remote, just like any other emerging and reemerging infectious diseases. We always try to prepare for that so that it won’t enter here. But if it does, our health care facilities should be prepared,” he said in Filipino.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Marburg virus was first detected in 1967 and is clinically similar to the Ebola virus. Both diseases are rare and may cause outbreaks with high fatality rates, it added.
The WHO also said that Marburg virus is transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads among humans through human-to-human transmission.
Ghana’s health service recently confirmed two cases of the Marburg virus, after two people who later died tested positive for the virus earlier this month.
The Department of Health (DOH), however, said the possibility of Marburg entering the Philippines was low.
No treatment or vaccine exists for the Marburg virus.
Marburg symptoms include high fever as well as internal and external bleeding.
DOH officer-in-charge Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the disease was endemic in or native to Africa.
“So I think the risk of this going in our country and spreading is very low. Nevertheless, we have to remain prepared. The Department of Health has begun its preparations since it received this report,” she said, referring to the Ghana cases.
“We give information to our surveillance offices and of course to our port of entries to include this on illnesses that are being monitored,” she said.
Fatality rates in confirmed cases of the Marburg virus range from 24 percent to 88 percent in previous outbreaks, depending on the virus strain and case management, the WHO said.
Earlier outbreaks and sporadic cases of Marburg in Africa have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda, the WHO also said.