Has The Philippines just been dot-marked in the world map for the pandemic influenza A(H1N1) virus with the announcement of one person confirmed to have been tested positive? And the World Health Organization has been quick enough to commend DOH for its ‘good surveillance system’. Is there a mutual admiration club, somewhere?

Wittingly or unwittingly, DOH has pushed the panic button since it has – without let up – been serving this ‘news staple’ on our table from since the start of this global pandemic. If those pronouncements were early signs, it is almost expected that one day DOH will have to announce to have discovered a case of at least one. Where it failed to do its job on the House Members and more so of Team Pacquiao , now DOH seems to get the most ordinary specimen from somewhere else. Certainly, transparency is always a valid concern that is yet to be satisfied.

We all remember an early announcement made to the effect that the drug is yet to be invented to this kind of new viral strain aggravated by the admission that the machine test for the virus is not locally available such that specimens have to be brought to neighboring countries with much technological capability. In no time, we are being told that such machine is already made available and the drug, more importantly, is likewise aplenty.

Fact is, DOH has in its stocks one million capsules of Oseltamivir, call it the wonder drug if you will, with another half a million more to be donated by a pharmaceutical company (local that is) in two weeks. If things were sleigh of the hand, then it seems that the DOH chief is playing magic. Well, some sort of this – ‘if the hand is quicker than the eyes, the Lady wins. Where will the lady be?”. Incidentally, DOH officials take turns in press conferences to say their piece. And one is just curious of a particular kind of ‘class dominance’ in the health department, why that?

Up until today, we have very serious doubts whether indeed RP should be officially included as having been attacked by the so-called swine flu virus. Political symptoms indicate to me that RP is better off part of that official list since it will justify the government to release awesome funds for the purpose on the one hand, and get every kind of financial package from foreign donor institutions on the other. The third phenomenon is of course the purely economic side of the ledger.

Not accidentally, but possibly purposive, is the need for the local pharmaceutical outfit to produce more capsules than just 1.5 million already in the stockpiles of DOH to satisfy the immediate demand in the market. If this is not state intervention, I don’t know what is – at least perhaps, a more patronizing one. Thus, from a single particular, the scare spreads faster than the virus itself. Something fishy ought to be happening somewhere – the consequences irreversible.

A whole lot of socio-cultural fiction has been spread scaring the wits out of us. Depending on how the larger public will react, the market would just have to be ready to make available all other kinds of health products or anti-influence A(H1N1) pharmaceutical commodities or devices for millions of people. From where I stand, I would suspect that what the DOH is doing is really just pulling the rugs from under our feet. I have yet to hear of more straight-jacketed assessment.

It might make good business sense to scare people. Once scared, they will all troop to the drugstores or pharmaceutical outlets to order their need for personal protective equipment (PPE), which this early, is said to have shore up in its original price like a heated mercury. It challenges reflection that DOH will place under surveillance 17 other individuals last known to have close contact with the single patient who is simply found to have manifested the symptoms of the disease.

It is almost expected that there should at least be 1 other individual from the field of 17 who will later on be found as likewise infected but then again, DOH will always say, the patients have overcome the viral attacks due to ‘good surveillance system’. And for what price? Well, ask the DOH secretary? Common sense tells me DOH should be investigated to vet its parochial findings.

Can we still sing the Happy Birthday song or some funeral hymn – hereafter? Just asking where all these overly conscious ‘nightmares’ all lead us to? Certainly, there must first be an open public discussion of this emerging social concern as much as possible between and amongst experts, stakeholders, possible victims, and the community standard be formulated in a ‘platform’ that is not built on guesswork. We need to hear of a more scientific approach to confront the possibility of any viral contagion from happening. Problem here, DOH was first to play upon our collective psyche via the injection of this ‘fear factor’ into our brains and our hypothalamus.

Let us demand an explanation.

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