DOH should focus on prevention of diseases

The pandemic has caught the Philippines and the rest of the world off guard, both having failed to adequately plan for something like this. When the virus blows over, hopefully soon, the Department of Health (DOH) should refocus its priorities.

Before the virus, the nation had a massive measles outbreak in 2019, one of the worst in the world. There also was a polio outbreak, with one in three Filipino children aged five years old and below at risk of contracting the life-threatening disease. Polio has been virtually eradicated in the rest of the world, but is alive here.

About 6 percent of Filipinos still defecate in open areas. Also, many spit in public, and sneeze and cough without covering their mouths. These are unhealthy practices that can easily spread diseases. But these risks to public health are easy to contain if the DOH is doing routine immunization programs and public awareness campaigns.

The COVID-19 outbreak could have been arrested earlier had the DOH drawn up fast and clear plans. The public should have been told of the urgency and the need for their full cooperation, before containment policies were implemented by President Duterte. The terms quarantine, enhanced quarantine, and lockdown should have been explained in schools and via the media. People didn’t even know how to properly sneeze, cough, wash their hands, or use a mask. The DOH slogan “Universal healthcare coverage for every Filipino” doesn’t mean a lot today when we are faced with a crisis of this magnitude.

Hopefully, the DOH will refocus its work and go back to its original mission of public health. Prevention, as they say, is better than cure.

JONATHAN FOE
[email protected]