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Twelve medical experts from China arrived yesterday in the Philippines to help the country curb the spread of COVID-19.
Comprised of two government officials and 10 health experts in various medical fields, the Chinese contingent has committed to teach their Filipino counterparts “technical advice on the prevention and control” of COVID-19, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The group will be working closely with the Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH) for 15 days, but they will not be involved in any direct clinical diagnosis or treatment of patients.
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DOH Secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a virtual presser yesterday that the Chinese experts will be visiting “our hospitals, laboratories, and quarantine facilities to assess our situation and issue their recommendations.”
She added that the Chinese team brought with them additional medical equipment including 30,000 N95 and 300,000 surgical face masks, 5,000 face shields and 30 ventilators which will be distributed in hospitals across the country.
At least 81,000 COVID-19 cases have been recorded in China since the disease was first detected in Hubei province in December. It’s seen over 3,000 deaths since the first person died of the virus in early January. Several reports however, suspect that the Chinese government has been under-reporting the number of cases and deaths in the country, suggesting that actual recorded cases are higher, and that its recent decline in cases should be approached with caution, SCMP reports.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, there have been 3,246 cases as of yesterday, with 152 deaths and 64 recoveries.
