MANILA: Doctors fear sending Filipino health workers to West Africa could open the country to the Ebola virus.
In separate interviews, Philippine Medical Association (PMA) president Minerva Calimag and Philippine College of Physicians’ (PCP) Anthony Leachon said it would not be a wise decision and would expose the 100 million Filipinos to the disease. Calimag said the Philippines is not ready to send health workers to Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone.
“We will only put our health workers at risk,” she said. “Of course they will come back so we will just open our borders to possible contamination.”
Calimag said the first dictum in an outbreak of infectious diseases is isolation.
Subjecting health workers to a hasty training is not enough to enable them to protect themselves against the virus, she added.
Leachon said the government’s priority is to secure the country’s ports and to protect our people. “The infection should be stopped at the source and the source here is West Africa,” he said. “We may only add up to the problem if we send Filipinos there.”
Leachon said the virus could infect the Philippines since it was able to reach developed countries like the US, Germany and Spain.
“Charity begins at home,” he said. “We have to strengthen our weak health system and to prepare our health personnel to handle Ebola cases. Christmas is coming so Filipinos from all over the world are coming home, so we have to be ready.”
Leachon said the Ebola outbreak cannot be compared to Super Typhoon Yolanda. “I don’t think you can compare Yolanda with Ebola,” he said. “In Yolanda, they came after the typhoon, when it was no longer there. But in Ebola, you are dealing with something that is ongoing and new.”
So far, only Cuba had responded to international calls to send health workers to help contain the outbreak. Records at the World Health Organisation (WHO) showed 8,399 Ebola cases: Liberia with 4,076, Guinea 1,350 and Sierra Leone 2,950 with 4,024 deaths, as of Oct 7.
Filipinos in Ebola-infected West Africa have not come forward to ask to be repatriated, although the government would pay for their airfare.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR
