The proposal to create a national center for disease control (CDC) is closer to becoming a law with the approval of a corresponding measure at the House of Representatives.

The Philippine Centers for Disease Prevention and Control Act would pave the way for establishing a center that would modernize the country's response to public health emergencies, such as Covid-19.

HB 6522 consolidates 27 other similar bills, which the House Committee on Health had approved in November.

The establishment of the CDC was one of the priority legislative agenda laid out by the President in his first State of the Nation Address in July.

Under the House's iteration of the bill, the CDC will be the technical authority in the forecast, analysis, strategy and standards development for the prevention and control of all diseases of public-health significance and health security events, regardless of origin.

The House approved similar bills on the third and final reading during the 18th Congress, but it failed to hurdle the Senate.