WHO: RP has ‘good chance’ of being declared SARS-free

The Philippines has a "good chance" of being declared SARS-free, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday.

"There is a good chance that the Philippines will be taken out from the list of SARS-infected countries because there was no infection from the chain of transmission that stemmed from Adela Catalon, the nursing attendant from Canada who died of SARS, for 20 days," WHO country representative Jean Marc Olive said.

The Department of Health (DOH) formally filed its request before Olive yesterday to reclassify the status of the Philippines as a SARS-affected country.

Olive will forward the request to the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Olive assured local health officials that the DOH’s bid for the Philippines to be declared SARS-free will not be derailed by reports that a Finnish national was quarantined in Finland after arriving from the Philippines.

The foreigner was reportedly suffering from fever and pneumonia, the primary symptoms of the deadly disease.

Olive said the Finn had no history of contact with Catalon, who serves as the "index case" in the May 20 delisting bid of the DOH.

"This will not affect the bid. It will have an effect if this person had been in contact with persons infected by Adela. In the Philippines, there is no community transmission of SARS, so that person could not have been infected with SARS," Olive told The STAR.

Dr. Consorcia Lim Quizon, head of the DOH’s National Epidemiology Center, said the department had already started tracing the people who came in contact with the Finn during his stay somewhere in Southern Tagalog.

Quizon added that the DOH is expecting the travel advisories issued by other countries against the Philippines to be "automatically" lifted when it is declared SARS-free.

This early, Bahrain has already lifted the travel ban for Filipinos, diplomatic sources said.

Passengers from the Philippines and Vietnam, although still required to undergo thorough health screening, can now freely enter Bahrain, where there are about 60,000 Filipinos.

The Philippine government is mulling the sending of a special diplomatic mission to Libya, Kuwait and other Islamic states to persuade them to lift the travel ban on Filipinos due to SARS.

The Philippines was included by the WHO in its list of SARS-infected countries after six people, who came in contact with Adela and her 74-year old father Mauricio, developed SARS symptoms.

Under its policy, WHO declares a SARS-infected country free of the deadly disease if no local transmission has occurred for 20 consecutive days.

Today is the 20th day since the last SARS infection was reported in the country. However, Olive said that WHO’s decision will be announced tomorrow.

"We are six hours behind so it’s not gonna be announced today but tomorrow," he explained.

Quizon assured that the Philippines will remain vigilant against SARS even after the WHO takes out the country from its SARS list.

Even Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina Jr. has directed local chief executives to continue implementing measures against the dreaded disease.

The DILG had earlier ordered the activation of the Barangay Health Emergency Response Team (BHERT) to monitor arrivals of OFWs from SARS-affected countries like China, Singapore and Taiwan.

The list of arrivals is now being segregated and referred to the provincial governors and mayors of highly urbanized countries and component cities through the DILG field offices.

As this developed, the municipal health office in Mabalacat, Pampanga has reported that nine of the 11 OFWs who arrived from Hong Kong and mainland China were in good health and on voluntary home quarantine.

"There is no reason for worry. All of the nine so far have been confining themselves at home since they arrived," Municipal health officer Dr. Oscar Aurelio said.

Barangay officials, however, are still trying to locate the two other OFWs. "I don’t think we have any problem with the other two but we just want to make sure they are also observing the quarantine period," Aurelio said. — With Pia Lee-Brago, Mayen Jaymalin, Perseus Echeminada, Ding Cervantes