Senators question the contact tracing of the Department of Health as Francisco Duque told in a Senate inquiry Tuesday that roughly fifth of 300 co-passengers of the two confirmed cases of nCoV have only been traced.
Duque added that the airline failed to provide contact information therefore only 17% percent have been contacted.
On a statement on Monday, Duque said that the tracing of co-passengers following death of 41-year old nCoV positive was in “full blast” but on the Senate inquiry he said that a “lack of transparency on the people on his part” is the reason for this slow development.
“‘Yung mga ganung operational details, hindi nalalaman ng Secretary yan,” Duque added while elaborating on the Health Agency’s priority of seeing the “big picture” of the outbreak.
Senator Francisco Pangilinan slammed Duque’s statement citing “failure of leadership” as the Health Secretary.
Senator Risa Hontiveros urged the DOH to hasten the tracing and requested a mandatory reporting for the passengers of the said flight.
Duque explained that the slow pace of this investigation is caused by the airlines not sharing contact details of passengers.
“They are invoking confidentiality,” Duque stressed.
However, Philippine Airlines spokesperson Cielo Villaluna told that they shared passengers’ contact details that will enable DOH to carry out callouts.
“On the top of that, PAL carried out callouts,” Villaluna added.
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