BIATF confirms appeal

To DILG: re-fund CCTs

CORTES, Bohol, Jan 23 (PIA) – Bohol Inter-Agency Task Force on the management of Emerging Infectious Disease (BIATF) has confirmed its appeal to the government to continue funding for the contact tracing team (CCTs), whose contracts have expired last December.

Speaking at the Kapihan sa PIA last week, BIATF Spokesperson Dr. Cesar Tomas Lopez confirmed that the task Force has appealed to the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to continue funding the over 700 contact tracers, assigned to Bohol local government units.

Contact tracers are those the DILG hired to complement the municipal contact tracing teams to help in containing the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Bohol, they were deployed to LGUs to track down individuals who came in close contact with persons later confirmed to be with the COVID-19 virus.

Although hired and their services were only for four months, some members of the contact tracing teams were rehired on extended terms until December 31.

“They finished their contracts last December,” Dr. Lopez said, highlighting the importance of proper contact tracing and data gathering in the province’s fight against the spread of the virus.

They were funded under the DILG Bayanihan Law budget, and they funds were used up, so we appealed to the DILG and the national government to continue the funding as they form a crucial force in the disease control, surveillance and tracking, Dr. Lopez cited.

This too as Bohol saw a 428 percent surge in COVID cases in a week’s time in Bohol.

From an all-time low of 6 cases in January 15, 2021, Boholanos now gape at 30 cases in January 22, 2021, where from zero new cases in the previous week, Bohol now has seven newly confirmed cases.

In a week’s time too, from three cases of local transmission, all outside Tagbilaran City which is Bohol’s most populous, these jumped to 11.

By January 22, the 11 local transmission cases were: five from Tagbilaran City and one each for Carmen, Ubay, Clarin, Cortes, Mabini and Dauis.

Now left limping with the lost DILG contact tracing teams, Bohol has to keep its bets on its own LGU-based contact tracing personnel and the Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams (BHERT) which are the COVID lieutenants in the grassroots. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)

EXTEND CONTACT TRACERS SERVICE. BIATF spokesperson and Assistant PHO in Bohol Dr. Cesar Tomas Lopez confirms reports that the authorities have appealed to the DILG to fund in 2021 the services of the contact tracing team which have rendered invaluable service to Boholanos during that times when Bohol was groping for systems to work on containing COVID-19 spread. (PIABohol)