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PH Covid-19 situation may not be comparable to India: expert

By Ma. Teresa Montemayor

April 29, 2021, 8:34 pm

<p>Infectious disease expert Dr. Edsel Salvana<em> (Screengrab)</em></p>

Infectious disease expert Dr. Edsel Salvana (Screengrab)

MANILA – The country's Covid-19 situation may not be comparable to India's problem considering the absolute numbers, population-adjusted numbers, reproduction number (Rt), and healthcare utilization rate contrary to the implications of an infographic shared online, an infectious disease expert said Thursday.

In a recent social media post, Dr. Edsel Salvana said India has over 200,000 Covid-19-related deaths tallying over 3,000 fatalities per day while the Philippines has 17,000 averaging 100 to 150 deaths a day.

The country's population adjusted death rate - similar to India - is less than one-tenth that of more advanced countries like the United States, France, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

"The case fatality rate for both countries is less than the global average. However, cases in India are surging at unbelievable numbers right now and these population adjusted numbers will change. It will take time for the data to catch up but it will get there, unfortunately," Salvana said.

As for the reproduction number of cases, the country's Rt is close to one while India's Rt continues to go up which means transmission is not being controlled and has not reached its peak.

"Indications for the Philippines are that we have reached the peak and are slowly decreasing. I still expect excess deaths to show up in the next 4 to 6 weeks, but hopefully it has plateaued. No such luck for India for now and that is why the whole world is scrambling to help it," Salvana said.

Though the emergency rooms in hospitals were full in the past month, the Philippines’ health care utilization rate for isolation care units (ICU) is 64 percent nationwide and 72 percent in the National Capital Region as of Thursday.

"Still not ideal, but we are able to admit critically ill people nowadays in about 1 to 2 days as opposed to almost a whole week in the recent past. India's ICUs in the surge areas are completely overwhelmed and they haven't peaked yet. They're out of oxygen, meds and supplies. This is really scary," Salvana said.

"But India right now is on a whole different level than anyone else - except maybe Brazil - and I pray they see their cases go down soon. I would not wish that on anyone, and this is why everyone is working so hard to keep this virus under control until we can get everyone vaccinated," he added.

However, Salvana noted that the Philippines still needs to increase its healthcare capacity, following its challenges in the past for weeks.

"We do have vaccines and I wish we can get them distributed faster to decrease transmission. We have a lot of work to do to increase healthcare capacity and make our country more resilient," he said. (PNA)

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