ADB okays $125-M Covid response loan
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved another loan to help the government improve the capacity of its health system to respond and control the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in the country.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Manila-based multilateral lender said the $125-million (P6.06-trillion) loan, called the “Health System Enhancement to Address and Limit (HEAL) Covid-19 Project,” would help the Department of Health (DoH) improve its services by upgrading medical equipment and related training.
“This project will help improve the preparedness and resilience of the country’s health systems at the national and local levels in handling current and future public health threats. It will also contribute to the Philippines’ efforts toward implementing universal health coverage,” ADB Vice President Ahmed Saeed said in the statement.
“The project will help the government scale up its ability to conduct Covid-19 tests, surveillance and infection prevention and control, and provide critical care equipment to improve treatment outcomes,” said Sakiko Tanaka, ADB principal social sector specialist for Southeast Asia.
The loan also aims to provide medical equipment, including electrocardiography machines and defibrillators, to 17 major hospitals and upgrade their laboratories and isolation facilities; and provide ventilators to 70 DoH hospitals and 20 island local government hospitals.
It will also go to installing computed tomography scan machines in 33 hospitals to improve clinical management of Covid-19 cases; delivering test kits, chemicals and reagents to at least 10 government molecular laboratories to increase their coronavirus testing capacity; and providing personal protective equipment to frontline health workers and laboratory technicians.
The loan will also fund the training of staff and laboratory technicians on how to operate and maintain the equipment. With the loan, the ADB said, “[d]octors and nurses in obstetrics, pediatric and emergency departments will learn how to reduce infection and control virus transmission.”
“Health workers will also learn how to provide psychosocial support to patients and families, including pregnant women and other vulnerable groups affected by Covid-19,” it added.
The loan comes as the government seeks to more than double its daily coronavirus testing capacity to 75,000 by year-end.
It also comes as the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country on Tuesday grew by 2,965 to 197,164, of which 61,730 are active, according to the DoH. Of the total, 136,396 have recovered and 3,038 died of the illness, which first emerged in the city of Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province last December.
The loan is the latest extended by the lending institution this year. It previously approved a $300-million loan for financial inclusion reforms; $400-million loan to boost farmers’ incomes; $26.5-million loan to help local government units boost revenues; $126-million loan to support the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System’s construction of a water transmission pipeline; $500-million loan to bolster the government’s conditional cash-transfer program; $400-million loan to strengthen the country’s capital markets; $200-million loan to support poor households; and $1.6-billion loan for the government’s Covid-19 response.
These loans total at least $3.67 trillion.
Source: TheManila Times
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