CEBU CITY, Philippines — The barangays in Cebu City are told to begin the Influenza-like-Illness (ILI) Surveillance system to track down all residents with symptoms of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Dr. Junjie Zuasula, an epidemiologist of the Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (Resu), said that this was a way to cluster the ILI and impose quarantine by area instead of widespread quarantine.
The barangays will have clustered monitoring of the residents through the Fever Cluster Clinics and all patients with ILI will be tested.
This would make it easier for local executives to identify the possible areas hit by COVID-19.
At least five patients with ILI in a given geographic location is considered one cluster, allowing the barangay health workers (BHW) to conduct testing in other residents in the cluster even if they are asymptomatic.
If two clusters have been identified, the barangay chief can declare a barangay-wide quarantine.
If two or more barangays are in quarantine, the local chief executive can declare a city wide quarantine.
Read more: Molecular lab at VSMMC ready for Covid-19 testing
Cebu City is the pilot for the system because the city has polymerase chain test (PCR) machines to test for COVID-19, at the molecular biology laboratory of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.
Consequently, the city has already declared a general community quarantine despite having no recorded cases yet.
Read more: Cebu City puts up border control as it enters ‘general community quarantine’
Clustered testing will also be easier for the laboratory because one positive sample would immediately indicate that all those specimens from the same cluster could prove positive to the virus as well.
“It is a very good surveillance system. We can easily contain and control. The resources are maximized,” said Zuasula.
The ILI system should be the best measure to maximize the data of status residents in the attempt to control the outbreak.
“Let us hope and pray it will work out. We are the first local government to do the surveillance. Let us give the surveillance a chance,” said Zuasula
Following the surveillance is the actual testing of the samples.
Read more: 20K test kits from OPAV now in Cebu; FDA adds more registered producers
Two PCR machines and over 20,000 testing kits are ready at the molecular biology laboratory at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC).
As of now only VSMMC can handle testing, upt to 25 samples per day, with results released in 24 hours.
Dr. Reynette Ligaray, the director of pathology in VSMMC, said the testing needs utmost biosafety.
From the swab samples from throats or nose, the virus is being extracted.
The laboratory will be doing amplification of the coronavirus in the laboratory, and there will always be a risk for an outbreak in the laboratory.
“Padaghanon nato ang virus through amplification. It’s very risky,” said Ligaray.
As much as the Department of Health (DOH) would want more machines to be used, Ligaray said it could not be possible.
It can be dangerous to medical technologists without specialized trainings.
With this, VSMMC will be the only one in Cebu as of now to do the confirmatory tests.
Ligaray said the molecular biology laboratory would work as fast as they could to test as many samples. /dbs