In response to the call of the National Task Force for COVID-19 Response to intensify contact tracing and management, the local government of Valenzuela recently launched the Mega Contact Tracing Center on August 25, 2020.
Managed by the City Health Office - Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit, the center is situated inside the Valenzuela Social Hall building. It is manned by 100 contact tracers and operates 24/7. These tracers call close contacts of each identified and confirmed case, focusing on getting information on the nature and avenues of likely exposure and advising for rapid quarantine and/or isolation.
Outside the center and on the field, another set of contact tracers will assist the barangay personnel in ensuring rapid house lockdown and transport of close contacts to temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMFs). Health personnel doing swab testing, rescue teams conducting extraction of COVID-19 positive cases and active Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams (BHERT) complete Valenzuela City’s response team, along with the contact tracers. Close coordination between these teams is maintained, with the contact tracing center serving as the convergence point.
Before their deployment, the city’s Health Office conducted a full day’s training to make sure that all contact tracers are equipped with the proper guidelines on notification of exposure, verification, confidentiality and empathy towards close contacts of COVID-19 patients.
“This job needs a degree of emotion for you to be able to get the right information from the patients. Treat your patient as your family member. You should treat patients the way you want to be treated,” Mayor Rex Gatchalian reminded the trainees in Filipino.
Earlier the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in the Philippines Dr Rabindra Abeyasinghe and Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Dr Francisco Duque III, had visited Valenzuela City to assess the situation of the pandemic response there. The field visit highlighted Balai Banyuhay, the city’s main temporary treatment and management facility (TTMF). It also provided an opportunity for WHO and DOH to discuss contact tracing strategies with the local government officials.
“Contact tracing is fundamental in the fight against COVID-19,” Dr. Abeyasinghe said during the visit. “Identifying and quarantining close contacts, identifying sources of infection and timely communication of information about avenues and sources of infection to the public will contribute to prevent further cases and suppression of transmission.”
DOH Undersecretary Dr Leopoldo Vega, Bases and Conversion Development Authority President Vivencio Dizon, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya, and Center for Health Development-NCR Regional Director Dr Corazon Flores accompanied Dr. Abeyasinghe and Dr. Duque on that visit.