Manage walking pneumonia using Covid lessons — Binay
The Department of Health has logged at least four cases of Mycoplasma pneumoniae, also known as ‘walking pneumonia,’ from January to November this year
The Department of Health has logged at least four cases of Mycoplasma pneumoniae, also known as ‘walking pneumonia,’ from January to November this year
Senator Nancy Binay on Monday said the government should manage the looming "walking pneumonia" health crisis by utilizing all the lessons it learned from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Binay said Covid was an "eye-opener," hence, the lessons learned from it "can be effectively used" to prevent the future escalation of various respiratory illnesses in the country.
"I hope we can use the lessons we learned here to effectively manage infectious diseases and to avoid them from becoming public health emergencies," Binay said.
The Department of Health has logged at least four cases of Mycoplasma pneumoniae, also known as "walking pneumonia," from January to November this year.
Binay noted the DoH's clarification that the four cases were not new and had been detected among those who got infected with influenza-like illnesses, or ILI.
Based on DoH records, only 0.08 percent of the ILI cases from January to 25 November were due to walking pneumonia, while more than half of the confirmed ILI cases were due to other well-known and commonly detected pathogens.
The health department likewise logged an increase in ILI cases nationwide, with 182,721 cases recorded between 1 January and 11 November.
The figure was 51 percent higher than the 121,160 cases reported in the same period in 2022.
Given the high number of respiratory cases and another expected increase in January, Binay said the "government should put in place the appropriate and necessary measures to ensure the public health system is not pushed to the limit."
"Let's do the necessary things like ensuring the availability of beds, medicine, and personnel, among other things. We have to make sure there will be no more public health emergencies," she said.
Binay also echoed the DoH's call for the public to observe minimum public health protocols to avoid being infected with the disease, especially as the holiday season approaches.
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