MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health said it is looking into the findings of experts from the University of the Philippines that “alarming” inconsistencies and errors were found in the agency’s data on coronavirus patients.
In a policy note, the UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team said some of the patients’ sex and age had been modified. There were also cases where the residence of the patients was classified to another city, if not a completely imaginary city.
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There was also a case of a patient initially reported dead on April 24 being classified as alive the next day.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the team that handles COVID-19 data has been instructed to investigate the findings of the UP experts.
Vergeire explained that COVID-19 data collection begins at barangays until data about patients reach the national level.
“We get data through these and most of the time through manual. Magkakaroon lang ng automation pero pasa pasa pa rin ng information and somewhere along the way magkakaroon ng ganitong errors,” she said in an interview on One News Tuesday evening.
“We are not denying that. Kung meron man silang nakita, amin pong ico-correct yan,” the Health official added.
The UP team also found that the country has “yet to reconcile differences in numbers between DOH and LGU sources.”
Vergeire said that some LGUs and hospitals fail to complete the task of manually filling up investigation forms that contain information about a suspected carrier.
“So binabalik balikan namin ‘yan. Nag-hire kami ng tao para makumpleto ‘yan. That’s why we also have backlogs in data sheets because of these incomplete information being given to us but we are trying to address that right now,” she said.
Data integrity
The UP team stressed that patient case date is the “keystone” for effective analysis.
“These lapses may seem small relative to the total size of the data contained in our daily updates but they have significant implications on the reliability of our scientific analyses on COVID-19,” the experts said.
Vergeire acknowledged that data play a “very important” role in formulating conclusions but she said that the agency needs to check the extent of the errors in the data systems.
“We have to see how big it is, how significant it is, itong sinasabi na inconsistencies natin para masabi natin na makakaapekto sa conclusions and interpretations,” she said.
The new coronavirus has already infected 11,350 people in the Philippines since the country had its first confirmed case on January 30. Of the number, 2,106 have recovered, while 751 have died. — Gaea Katreena Cabico