MANILA – A Philippine Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) will soon be created as the bill proposing the new agency was approved on final reading at the House of Representatives.
During Monday's plenary session, a total of 255 lawmakers voted to approve House Bill 6522 creating the CDC, which shall be an agency directly under the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Health (DOH).
The bill is included in the list of priority legislation mentioned by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in his first State of the Nation Address.
The CDC shall be vested with technical authority on forecasting, analysis, strategy, formulation and standards development for the prevention and control of all diseases of public health importance and health security events, whether domestic or international in origin.
The CDC shall coordinate with global CDCs and act as the national focal point of the Philippines for international health regulation (IHR) concerns.
The proposed agency shall implement disease surveillance and field epidemiology activities; perform data collection and analytics; recommend actions for public health threats to appropriate national government bodies; lead public health and risk communications; and strengthen public health laboratories, among others.
The bill also mandates the establishment of the following component centers: Center for Health Statistics (CHS), Center for Epidemiology and Surveillance (CES), Center for Health Evidence (CHE) and Center for Health Laboratories (CHL).
If enacted into law, the President, during public health emergencies, may direct the operations of any privately-owned establishment including, among others, hospitals and medical and health facilities, passenger vessels and other private enterprises, to perform functions and provide support services for public health emergency response. (PNA)
