THE Police Regional Office (PRO)-Eastern Visayas has put up various measures to help the Department of Health (DOH) in fighting any threat of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Eastern Visayas.
“Let us hope and pray that this crisis will be over soon, and be rest assured of PRO-Eastern Visayas’ full support in battling and withstanding the Covid-19 outbreak,” said PRO-Eastern Visayas Director Ferdinand Divina.
Brigadier General Divina has created a Critical Incident Management Task Group (CITMG) with 12 other key officers to address the critical and crisis incident in response to the disease.
Also, he established police assistance desks (PADs) in airports, seaports and areas of convergence around the region.
“This is to ably assist the Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) of the DOH with regard to the security, isolation and control of quarantine areas,” said Divina.
“In addition, the Regional Reactionary Standby Support Force (RRSSF) composed of 32 personnel, four Search and Rescue (SAR) Teams, two Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs) were activated and ready for deployment to support security and response operations as the need arises,” he added.
Divina reminded the public of their responsibility to “present themselves to the nearest health facility if they experience any symptoms associated with the virus.”
He also directed all the police personnel in the region to assist the DOH in the conduct of contact tracing and to secure the transfer of patients to appropriate health facilities and the provision of other public safety services, if necessary.
As of Friday, February 28, Eastern Visayas remains free from the disease, according to DOH Assistant Regional Director Dr. Exuperia Sabalberino.
“No patient under investigation (PUI) is admitted nor isolated in the referral hospital, and the remaining five persons under monitoring are closely monitored and still in home quarantine,” the health department in the region said.
The five PUMs include one from Southern Leyte and four from Leyte province.
A cumulative of 18 PUIs were recorded in the region, however all of them were cleared and negative for Covid-19.
Meanwhile, the health official said they continue its effort in containing and monitoring the cases of PUI and PUM in the region.
Recently, travels in the administrative region of China (Hongkong and Macau) were restricted, and ban in Taiwan was lifted, however, as per resolution of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) imposed a travel restriction to South Korea due to its increasing cases of Covid-19, according to DOH.
A total of 445 repatriates overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are currently quarantined in New Clark City, Capas, Tarlac together with the 13 repatriation team from DOH and the Department of Foreign Affairs, bringing the total persons under quarantined to 458, the health department said in a statement.
“Among the repatriated OFWs none is coming from Eastern Visayas,” said Sabalberino. (SunStar Philippines)