Agusan Sur beefs up SARS watch

PROSPERIDAD, Agusan del Sur — This province has strengthened its anti-SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) watch with the Sangguniang Panlalawigan passing last week an ordinance tasking barangay health emergency response teams to monitor suspected SARS cases, among other measures.

The province is the only one in the Caraga region with such an ordinance.

All 314 barangays of Agusan del Sur’s 14 municipalities have formed such response teams, which will help monitor overseas workers returning from SARS-affected countries.

Under the ordinance, both public and private hospitals are barred from discriminating against suspected SARS cases.

Gov. Adolph Edward Plaza said that while the health of residents is of utmost concern, hospitals’ refusal to admit those manifesting SARS-related symptoms is inhuman.

"Why prevent (the patient) from entering a hospital?" said provincial board member Santiago Cane Jr., who authored the ordinance. Plaza had certified the ordinance as a priority measure.

The ordinance mandates testing and quarantine in a Department of Health-designated place of residents showing SARS symptoms like high fever, coughing and shortness of breath. The same goes for people who have been in close contact with SARS suspects.

Provincial officials may call on the police to make sure that those under quarantine are isolated until the DOH has certified them to be SARS-free.

All hospital workers are required to wear protective gear to protect them from infection.

So far, no SARS cases have been reported in the Caraga region. Authorities, however, bewailed the lack of facilities and equipment to detect SARS suspects passing through the region’s airports and seaports.

In Cagayan de Oro City, a suspected SARS case threw local officials into a frenzy last week as she was being brought to the Northern Mindanao Medical Center.

Police barred health authorities from admitting the patient, a domestic worker from Taiwan, to the regional hospital until Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina intervened.

Health authorities, however, later declared her as suffering only from urinary tract infection which, coupled with climate change, caused her fever.