Manila: The Philippine government is responding early to possible vulnerabilities before an Ebola case is reported in the country, authorities have said.

Health officials are looking at such scenarios as possible reactions of overseas Filipino workers and health workers to mandatory 21-day quarantine and expected demands by health workers who are handling Ebola patients for more protection and hazard pay, sources told Gulf News.

The government is preparing for possible resistance to the mandatory 21-day quarantine for overseas Filipino workers who will be returning from Liberia and other Ebola-hit West African countries, said Dr Lyndon Lee Suy, spokesman of the health department and head of a division that handles prevention of infectious diseases.

“We have started a campaign reminding and appealing to returning OFWs to properly fill up a data sheet about them and their whereabouts at the aeroplane before it lands on the runway. This will help us locate suspected Ebola virus carrier. If we cannot locate them, they will continuously expose their family members to the killer virus,” warned Lee Suy

Authorities are not as worried with the 148 Filipino peace keepers who have been working with the United Nations in Liberia and were scheduled to arrive in Manila in November. “As military men, they would comply with the 21 day mandatory quarantine in a military facility,” said Lee Suy.

But civil society groups would question the 21-day mandatory quarantine because local government leaders have not yet filed in court a request for its implementation, a member of a rights group who requested for anonymity also told Gulf News.

This would encourage OFWs including private and volunteer health workers to defy the government’s 21-day mandatory quarantine, said the same source, Plans to implement enforced quarantine was announced on Thursday.

The same source cited the case of Kaci Hickox, a 33-year old nurse who worked with Medecins Sans Frontieres in Sierra Leone and treated Ebola patients there. She tested negative for the virus, and defied on 31 October a 21-day mandatory quarantine imposed by Governor Paul LePage of Maine in the United States.

Her lawyers opted to wait for a court order, which would also be questioned.

A similar strict measure is being imposed by the Philippine government on 148 returning Filipino peacekeepers.

“I think this would also discourage volunteers to heed calls of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation [WHO] for more health workers in Ebola-hit countries,” the source sai.

Hazard pay

At the same time, the Philippine government is also preparing for possible demands from doctors and nurses for more protection and hazard pay now that they are being trained on how to handle Ebola patients, said sources from the health and labour departments who asked not to be identified.

“We are responding to this problem because of what is happening in hospitals abroad,” a doctor from a private hospital said.

He referred to some 18,000 members of National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association in the US who scheduled a walkout strike on November 12, to push demands for standardised protection and hazard pay in caring for Ebola patients.

In petitions addressed to Congress and President Barack Obama, the nurses also demanded support for activities to raise money for their hazmat suits.

The Philippines’ migrant population is one major reason why the country is vulnerable to Ebola’s spread, WHO country representative Dr Julie Hall said.

Some 12 million OFWs are based worldwide, including 3,759 in West Africa — 1,979 of whom are in Sierra Leone, 880 in Guinea, and 900 in Liberia, including 148 Filipino peace keepers there.

Citing these data, Eric Tayag, assistant health secretary, said, “Outbreak countermeasures that exist (in the Philippines) today are not enough to contain Ebola.”.

“It is just a matter of time when the Philippines reports its Ebola case,” Tayag added

Meanwhile, the health department is waiting for President Benigno Aquino to decide whether the Philippine government will send money or medical equipment to Ebola-hit West African countries following a decision not to send health workers there, Lee Suy said.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced the allotment of $500 million (Dh1.8 billion), including $117 million that was disbursed earlier, to strengthen social assistance in Ebole-hit West African countries. He complained of lack of volunteer health workers in places with highest rates of infection.

“Various Philippine government agencies have been busy preparing to prevent the entry of the Ebola virus in the Philippines, the reason why we could not send health workers abroad,” Lee Suy explained.

Starting October 28, government and private health workers underwent a three-day training program from foreign experts on how to handle Ebola patients.

Ebola has killed almost 5,000 mostly in West Africa since the start of 2014.