Marcos to WHO: Primary healthcare on top of gov't agenda
MANILA, Philippines — At his meeting with the chief of the World Health Organization on Tuesday night, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. asserted that primary health care is on top of the government's agenda in both fighting health crises and sustaining the effective delivery of essential health services.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-deneral of the World Health Organization, paid a courtesy visit on the chief executive at the Study Room in Malacañang, where Department of Health officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire was also present.
During their meeting, Marcos emphasized the necessity of finding a balance between the economy and people's safety during the meeting, citing the effectiveness of the government's COVID-19 vaccine campaign.
"We need to do that, especially now that we have learned many lessons from this pandemic," said Marcos in a statement by the Office of the Press Secretary. "It is the time to start. Even in the psychology of our people, they think that we are now managing COVID very well."
This was corroborated in the Pulse Asia September 2022 Ulat ng Bayan survey, which saw 78% of Filipinos approve of the Marcos administration's performance in controlling the spread of COVID-19.
Optional face masks
Their meeting came on the same day Marcos agreed to issue an executive order making face masks optional even indoors.
Ghebreyesus said that while more COVID-19 variants emerge, the pandemic has yielded so many lessons, among which is that adequate testing and preparedness are crucial to battling disease outbreaks.
"I don't think we will need different tools than we have now. It's a matter of immediately detecting and using tools to stop it," the WHO chief said.
"If we continue to be vigilant, we can solve it. So what I expect is for the future, maybe in the next few months or more, I think we will move forward," he also pointed out.
The President also called for a renewed focus on general public health concerns as cases of other diseases have increased.
"[We have to] bring back to other issues that were neglected during the height of the pandemic. There's so much to do. We have to take care of our people," the chief executive said.
As it stands, the Philippines has one million children who have not received a single dose of childhood vaccine, leaving them susceptible to transmission of various life-threatening vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio, measles, and tuberculosis.
Warning of an impending measles outbreak, the Department of Health also said earlier that out of an ideal international target of 95% immunization in countries, only 62.9% of children and infants in the country were fully immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases, with almost 3 million children not having measles vaccination.
The Philippines has recorded nearly four million COVID-19 cases, with more than 63,000 deaths, since the pandemic started in 2020.
Marcos has yet to name a health secretary, months into his administration.
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