CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines – A legislator here on Friday said he will ask health and port officials to implement measures that would ensure the deadly disease from China will not spread to the Philippines.
Recent reports reveal that the Black Death plague has infected two persons in that country’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
“We have to tighten our quarantine of Chinese (nationals) coming from the affected region,” Rufus Rodriguez, this city’s 2nd District representative, said.
“We should keep a close watch,” he said, noting that Chinese nationals arrive in the Philippines daily.
A total of 3.12 million Chinese citizens entered the country from January 2016 to May 2018, based on data from the Bureau of Immigration. This means over a hundred thousand Chinese nationals enter the country every month or almost four thousand daily.
The Duterte administration, according to Rufus, must request the Chinese government to enforce their own quarantine in the communities where this plague was discovered and they should be isolated by imposing a protocol to prevent the spreading of the disease.
He added the Chinese government must also request the World Health Organization to send its experts to China to help them contain the plague.
Based on historical accounts, the plague, or known then as the Black Death, killed around 50 million people in Europe around 14th century, although in modern times cases have been reported in the United States, some parts of Asia, South America and Africa, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In spite of this, the chances of the plague reaching global pandemic proportion just like what happened in the Middle Ages is “close to nil,” said Dr. James Shepherd, an associate professor of internal medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, in a Forbes article.
The Black Death plague can be transmitted through flea bites and infected animals, primarily wild rodents like rats, prairie dogs, squirrels and rabbits, although human pets like cats and dogs can also get infected. (davaotoday.com)
