The local government of Mapanas, Northern Samar has converted container vans into isolation facilities for suspected and confirmed carriers of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in the town.
Through a PHP5.9-million funding from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the local government completed the project in just one month, said Joe Louis Gajutos, the Mapanas municipal disaster risk reduction and management officer in a message sent to the Philippine News Agency.
The facility is designed to have four units as stations for medical front-liners. At least 16 units are separately meant for locally stranded individuals (LSIs) and confirmed and probable cases.
Each unit has two rooms with proper ventilation, beds, chairs, trash bins.
“Container vans have many uses. After the pandemic, we could use it as training or seminar venues (or) evacuation centers during typhoons. It could be used as office space and could be an income-generating project as an accommodation facility for our visitors,” Gajutos said.
The town has been isolating suspected coronavirus carriers at the Mapanas Central Elementary School. As of Monday, the town has already recorded four Covid-19 cases, including three recoveries and one death.
The local government of Mapanas has set aside PHP1.5 million as a counterpart fund to enhance the facility in Sta. Protenciana village prior to the turnover from DSWD within this month.
Mapanas is a fifth class town in Northern Samar with a population of 14,025. The town is 263 kilometers northeast of Tacloban City, the regional capital.
Transforming the container van into an isolation facility is one of the 244 pandemic-related response projects through the DSWD’s Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan- Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) disaster response operations procedure.
The community-identified projects include a cash-for-work scheme and construction of health quarantine/isolation facilities, procurement of personal protective equipment, provision of communication equipment, and medical supplies for use of LSIs, returning overseas Filipino workers, and front-liners.
The implementation of these projects is part of DSWD Kalahi-CIDSS activation of its disaster response operations procedure in response to Proclamation No. 929 declaring a state of national calamity in the entire country, due to the threats of the health crisis.
The Kalahi-CIDSS, one of the agency’s poverty-alleviation programs, uses the community-driven development strategy to mobilize communities in targeted poor and disaster-affected municipalities in identifying their most pressing needs, managing and implementing solutions, and maintaining them.
The national government and the World Bank have funded over PHP174 million to carry out these coronavirus disease 2019 response-related projects in 26 poor towns. (PNA)
