Mayor Evelio Leonardia has directed officials of the city’s 61 villages to organize barangay health emergency response teams (BHERTs) against the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as the City Council approved a P10-million fund for measures to prevent an outbreak.

As of. Feb. 6, the City Health Office (CHO) has monitored six persons under investigation (PUIs) in Bacolod hospitals.

These include a female from China, and five Filipinos, all in stable condition, said Dr. Grace Tan, spokesperson of the city’s inter-agency task force against nCoV.

The seventh, a male expatriate, was discharged on Wednesday after confirmatory testing from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine showed him negative for nCoV.

In Memorandum Order 12, Leonardia said the BHERTs, which will help manage nCoV suspects and their contacts, would be supervised by the CHO.

There should be one BHERT for every 5,000 population.

Under the set-up, there should be compulsory home confinement of persons arriving from a nCoV-affected country.

The BHERTs are also tasked to monitor and provide information to the city mayor of all persons within their respective barangays who have arrived from a nCoV-affected country. They will also coordinate with the barangay task force and appropriate agencies and offices, including health centers and/or hospitals.

“Conduct a barangay clean-up campaign and promote the widespread dissemination of information on nCoV prevention, containment, and control and establish a barangay control and information center to facilitate reporting of nCoV suspects and contacts, and dissemination of new coronavirus-related information,” Leonardia said in the memorandum as to the other roles of BHERTs.

He also reminded village chiefs to prohibit the disclosure to the public the identity of the PUIs and those under monitoring (PUM) for nCoV unless otherwise authorized by the proper government agency or office.

During its regular session on Wednesday evening, the City Council approved the PHP10-million funding support to the Bacolod City Inter-Agency Task Force Against the nCoV through the CHO, which was requested by the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council to establish a sound Emergency Response Preparedness Program on nCoV. PNA