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By Victoria “NIKE” De Dios
Despite the strict social distancing in place in the country, the United States, Agency for International Development (USAID), through its TB Platforms Project, successfully implemented by the University Research Co. (URC) LLC., a webinar series on infection prevention and control for tuberculosis and COVID-19.
The activity began since the start of the community quarantine and continue to date to bring awareness on how to deal with the pandemic to prevent the spread in the country.
This is the first time that the USAID launched its first hospital-wide webinar. The productive partnership with the Philippine Heart Center’s (PHC) medical team, nursing department, and administrative staff, benefitted as many as 800 people who were able to join the webinar.
Led by Dr. Marianne Calnan, the Chief of Party at University Research Co., LLC (URC), the webinar was welcomed and appreciated by the Philippine Heart Center.
No less than, Dr. Joel M. Abanilla, Executive Director of PHC, who graciously welcomed all online participants highlighting that this partnership with USAID’s TB Platforms is one of their initiatives that aims to promote health education and protect their employees from TB and COVID-19. He mentioned that this webinar is timely as various guidelines have recently been released internally to control, contain, and prevent any COVID viral transmission in the health facility.
Meanwhile, Dr. Hansel Ybanez, USAID’s TB Platforms’ Field Operations Area Manager for National Capital Region (NCR) collaborated with PHC’s Infection Control Committee (ICC) for the conduct of a special session to discuss the project’s activities supporting the Department of Health’s TB response amid COVID-19.
Dr. Christian Villacorte, the project’s MDRTB and Patient-Centered Care (PCC) Specialist explained the latest IPC guidelines for healthcare workers and hospital staff. He reiterated that TB remains the world’s top infectious disease but COVID-19 is highlighting how vulnerable people with TB can easily get infected. Despite the differences in the mode of TB and COVID-19 transmission, Dr. Villacorte stressed that there are certain measures relevant to both diseases.
“Usual precautions to protect healthcare workers from TB must continue along with the additional actions to protect them from COVID-19,” Dr. Villacorte added.
Dr. Villacorte also pointed out that this partnership with PHC is not a one-time engagement. The USAID’s TB Platforms was requested to share the recent studies for TB and COVID-19 as well as the common IPC measures applicable during this COVID-19 pandemic. Several clarifications were raised by online participants about the importance of the use of N95 masks at work and in public places and most importantly on recent guidelines detailing how to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 while they are literally exposed to a number of asymptomatics of COVID-19.
Being a health facility, the PHC ICC team present during the webinar led by Ms. Kristine Grace Isip, shared how the management provides personal protective equipment (PPEs) to their frontliners. She also shared that they explained the latest COVID-19 cases and updates to their employees using their institutional accounts and official social media platforms. They also practice regular debriefing as needed.
PHC ICC team shared that hospital personnel is facing a wide range of challenges. As Dr. Abanilla mentioned, from the moment their staff leave their homes to go to work, as they embrace the risks of being infected while on duty and as they return to their families at the end of the day, the probability of infection is very high.“
But educating our team on infection prevention and control measures gives us this hope that prevention is still better than cure that is why we are reinforcing these important IPC practices. From our end we will ensure that employees’ health and safety are also on our top priorities,” he ended.
USAID’s TB Platforms partnered with the Philippine Information Agency for public outreach on infection prevention and control for both TB and COVID-19. As the projects provide continuous technical assistance to DOH National Tuberculosis Program, local government units and health facilities in NCR, Regions 3 and 4-A and Marawi City, it also provides remote mentoring and monitoring to TB nurse coordinators, midwives, barangay healthcare workers, and volunteers as they provide continuous TB services in their communities. This webinar series has also engaged local chief executives and provincial/city/municipal health officers in crafting their strengthened local TB responses amid COVID-19.
PHC remains the Philippines’ leading center in cardiovascular care and has been a proactive health facility providing comprehensive COVID-19 response. USAID’s TB Platforms will continue to work with their ICC team in the next months to provide technical assistance for TB response amid COVID-19.
Last month, USAID’s TB Platforms conducted the first province-wide webinar on IPC for Cavite Province and Tarlac. The project has also conducted a Central Luzon-wide IPC webinar for occupational health and safety officers. The project has also partnered with youth-led organizations like the National Youth Commission who will activate the Sangguaniang Kabataan Councils’ in promoting responsible public health information dissemination. Recently, USAID’s TB Platforms also partnered with the Photojournalists’ Center of the Philippines (PCP).
The USAID’s TB Platforms will be working with PIA and PCP in documenting the continuous provision of TB services amid the COVID-19 in all its demonstration sites.
Diwata de Castro-Paredes, the project’s Social and Behavior Change Communication Specialist is also working with public and private radio stations, for localized regional discussions on IPC measures for TB amid COVID-19, sharing of strengthened local health governance initiatives, promotion of mHealth applications being used to promote continuous TB treatment amid the pandemic.
Read related story: https://thephilbiznews.com/usaid-partners-launch-tb-platforms-project-webinar-for-marawi/
