State of calamity in flu-hit Nueva Ecija town

MANILA, Philippines - A few days after the Department of Health (DOH) declared a community-level outbreak amid fears that about a hundred residents have shown symptoms of Influenza A(H1N1), the town of Jaen in Nueva Ecija was placed under a state of calamity.

But Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the agency is still “on top of the situation” even as the number of cases in the country soared to 247 after 54 more persons tested positive for the virus.

Jaen Mayor Santiago Austria placed the town under a state of calamity yesterday morning upon approval of the Sangguniang Bayan.

Under the declaration, the municipal council authorized the local chief executive to spend some P600,000 for emergency needs to contain the spread of the virus in their town.

Austria reported that doctors and nurses are now monitoring 23 more students and a teacher at the Lambakin High School in Barangay Lambakin after they manifested flu-like symptoms.

Lambakin is next to Barangay Hilera, where the first community-level outbreak was declared.

“There seems to be fear of contamination. In the last 13 days, no other elected local official has accompanied me to visit the patients,” Austria said.

He said the declaration of a state of calamity would enable the local government to spend part of its budget for various needs, such as masks and alcohol to contain A(H1N1).

He said despite reports of flu among students at the Lambakin High School, classes were not suspended as advised by the DOH.

However, classes at the Hilera Elementary School remained suspended and the resumption will depend on the advice of the DOH.

 ‘On top of the situation’

Although the number of cases has been consistently increasing on a day-to-day basis, Duque attributed the rising figures to “aggressive contact tracing and surveillance and transparency in reporting data.”

“This, while other countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), sometimes do not report (cases),” he said, explaining why the Philippines is leading Southeast Asian countries in terms of A(H1N1) cases.

“For example, the countries with very low cases (like) Thailand, the number one industry there is tourism. Can you just imagine what’s the impact of this on their tourism if they started reporting? Indonesia has 240 million population and people are coming in and out (but the number of cases is low),” Duque said.

Of the 54 new cases, two were foreigners but the DOH has refused to reveal their nationalities. Their ages range from five to 70 years, while 29 were males and 25 were females.

Two of the cases are employees of ABS-CBN television network, as confirmed by the network in an official statement sent to reporters.

“Both employees are already safe and recovering. Company officials have been closely coordinating with the DOH on the cases and have also conducted contact tracing to check on the health conditions of the people who may have been exposed to the two individuals.

“ABS-CBN has implemented preventive measures internally and waged intensive information campaign that will help its employees guard against the virus,” the statement read.

New cases were also reported at the Miriam College and Lagro Elementary School in Quezon City and Our Lady of Perpetual Succor in Marikina.

Classes were suspended for ten days at the Lagro Elementary School and Our Lady of Perpetual Succor.

In La Union, a member of the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) who was suspected to have the virus has been placed on isolation inside one of the three military vessels that arrived at port for the joint naval exercises with the Philippine Navy.

Commodore Jose Luis Alano, commander of the Naval Force Northern Luzon, confirmed that the patient was suffering symptoms of A(H1N1) such as sore throat, headache, colds and fever after he was checked by quarantine personnel.

“Upon their arrival, we followed the proper CIQS (Customs, Immigration Quarantine Security) procedures. During the inspection, one of the crew was found to be suffering from fever and other symptoms,” Alano said.

He said the patient’s 63 companions onboard the ship were also isolated in the vessel pending the laboratory result from the DOH, which will come out Thursday.

“We have taken precautionary measures until we get the result or confirmation from the DOH. The joint military exercise has started with the crew of the two other vessels joining their Filipino counterparts,” Alano said.

The three RMN ships came from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia where the Navy men were allowed to go out for one-day liberty before they sailed for the three-day journey to the Philippines.

Dengue is deadlier

But if the increase in the number of A(H1N1) cases has been discouraging, the fact that no death has been reported since it first struck on May 21 gives the DOH reason to be hopeful.

In fact, seven out of the eight Bulacan students found positive for the virus are now recovering, but health officials said they must test negative twice to be cleared.

Dr. Joycelyn Gomez, Bulacan provincial spokesperson on A(H1N1), said that persons in close contact with the students showed no symptoms of influenza-like illness.

All of them were given free Tamiflu by the DOH, while local health officials conducted massive house-to-house check up to monitor levels of transmission.

Gomez said they are still trying to identify the source of the infection after another student of the same school who came from the United States showed symptoms of the viral infection but later recovered.

Secretary Duque said they have yet to receive reports of cases in the Visayas and Mindanao.

He said it is possible that people in these places were not reporting suspected flu cases in their localities, but warned that it is a violation of WHO guidelines in preventing the spread of the flu virus.

He said some people infected with the virus think that they recover from the sickness even without medication or being confined in hospital.

He stressed that what the country has is not yet a pandemic but a community-outbreak or epidemic.

Duque advised the public to be equally wary of suspected dengue cases, as this is deadlier than A(H1N1) flu. 

From January to May this year, the health department recorded 60 deaths from dengue, a blood disease which a person gets from a mosquito.  

Backlog in RITM results

Meanwhile, a backlog has been noted in the release of results of the examination of throat swab samples sent to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Manila for possible A(H1N1) viral infection.

Health officials in Southern Mindanao lamented that there has been a delay lately in the arrival of the results of the examination of the throat swab samples sent to RITM compared to last month when swine flu cases were first confirmed in the country.

RITM, the principal research arm of the DOH, has been designated as the national influenza center being the country’s only WHO network-participating laboratory for influenza virus surveillance.

“We used to get the results of the swab tests within one or two days but now we understand because of the volume of the throat swab samples that has to be examined, there is already some sort of a delay in the arrival of the results here,” said Dr. Salvador Estrera, Southern Mindanao assistant regional health director.

However, Estrera was quick to point out that RITM is already doing double time in its examination of the throat swab samples sent to them.

Davao Medical Center assistant hospital chief Dr. Ricky Audan said RITM has been overwhelmed with requests for throat swab sample tests so that what used to be 36 hours maximum for results already reach more than four days.

Audan said patients would only be administered Tamiflu if they test positive for the viral infection.

“That is why we need to know the results immediately so we could give the appropriate treatment to the patients,” he added.

Estrera likewise said two results arrived yesterday afternoon from the RITM, indicating that two of the four who are presently confined at the isolation ward of the Davao Medical Center tested negative for swine flu.

Audan said three patients were referred to the Davao Medical Center yesterday for showing flu symptoms, although they have been sent home and advised to be on self-quarantine after throat swab samples were taken. – With Sheila Crisostomo, Dino Balabo, Jun Elias, Dennis Carcamo, Ding Cervantes, Edith Regalado, Non Alquitran