2015. Good Lord! Gonna be very busy. In fact, it has been busy since April 2014. I never had an inkling last holy week that I will be involved in major responses with different tasks which just about covers everything about bio threats. The MERSCOV incidents were the watershed events that prompted the DOH to accept us the PNP as partners in the battle to prevent a deadly epidemic. The missteps of the holy week made massive revisions to the DOH protocols, and prompted the formulation of the PNP Action Plans on Emerging Diseases. That plan was initiated by then the Director for PNP ops , now the current OIC, PNP. Many hot debates and making stands in direct talks with the SILG Later, the PNP for the first time in its existence has better mechanisms and has recognized how important its role is in fighting diseases. The boss still calls me prof. Every conceivable scenario considered. My holy week was spent not on visiting churches, but on contact tracing and sifting thru bits of info trying to find 414 people. If ever there was one with MERSCOV, i amproud to say we could have found out albeit with difficulties. Then came dead horses and people, almost the same time as the MERSCOV in some remote mountain top town in the middle of bandit country in Mindanao. I was tasked to join up with a scientific team to find out the root cause of what was revealed later in August as Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) virus, which was billed as the same biohazard level as Ebola. I came alone and reported to Mindanao. I must give credit to the Region 12 Public Safety Battalion and Sultan Kudarat Public Safety Company which provided Scouts and security elements. What the scientific team did not know was all areas we went to had prior security arrangements in an area known as battlezones. Not only did these troopers provided scurity, but their presence plus one nosy medic made the populace there take heed seriously of that emerging threat. Imtold em boys we will be facing the demons of the rainforests under extreme natural hazard conditions, with the same risks as that of those poor fellas who suffered from AES. It was my duty also to protect these troopers from tropical diseases and allay their fears of the unknown virus. They admitted they preferred facing rebels than be subjected to viral disease. We entered the rainforest awed by a spectacular display of teeming wildlife, the largest flying mammals in the world, thousands of flying foxes, searching for food and taking off at dusk to return at dawn. Thus, we lay claim to the nom de guerre of the PNP. Flying Foxes, having been under their lairs in the triple canopy forest, 4500 feet above sea level. We were witness to probably the last kind of mass movement of wildlife, as we in the modern world have been slowly destroying our forests. Emerging from the forest, I given what i believe was the ultimate compliments by these combat scarred troops, they said they would never would have entered the forests without me and will never leave without me, i had an emotional parting with these guys, and requested to their boss that they be spared 2 weeks self quarantine. But last i heard after 2 weeks, they were sent again to combat bandits in another part of central mindanao. Whenever you emerge from the forest after a mission, you feel animal like, and it would feel awkward to decompress instantly in Manila. Instead i spent another week in Parang, Maguindanao, where 15 to 18 hour daily brownouts is a way of life. mindanao, especially in Maguindanao, you schedule your ablutions according to when water flows from the faucet. But Cotabato and Parang seemed like sophisticated urban sprawls , compared to Bandit country, having spent days in the forest with only the light of fireflies are seen together with an unpolluted view of the stars and the moon, having bathed bathed in spring and rain water, eating simple food and interacting with tribesmen who has never seen urban life. And yet, we urban people tend to complain about lost internet signal, dropped cellphone calls, 1 hour brownouts. Traffic traffic. Abaw, they are trivial compared to what the Manobos and Lumads of Mindanao are subjected to. How do you complain about your broken shower head to people who take baths in mountain streams only? What is a brownout compared to no electricity for 50 years of your life? When I was there they listened intently as i asked them to do certain practices to prevent spread of AES. Probably they thought it so serious enough that the government sent an urban doc to mingle with them despite the risks. Of course, i am beginning to think that some of the myths and diseases attributed to Banyan aka Balete trees are due to unknown viral or bacterial diseases. I also can explain why bats and fireflies like flying around balete trees by observing these trees when we stayed with the lumads. Flying off back to Manila, here comes the news of the surge of Ebola in West Africa. We were actually monitoring the Ebola situation since it was only a dozen cases in Guinea last year 2013. So our partners in DOH called up again to ask that a multi agency plan be done. Of course, the PNP has already made its assessments and plan for a Philippine Ebola scenario whenit was not yet scary. In fact, i have a plan already since 2009. When it was told that the UN peacekeepers in Liberia were coming home, during the interagency meeting, when the other agencies were discussing options, we already have a presentation with all the pros and cons already considered, the plan if quarantine or self-quarantine was chosen and our recommendations. Now the Caballo island quarantine was under wraps for sometime. While we in the PNP deferred to the AFP because of the preponderance of their forces, we already have a contingency plan ready in case the quarantine responsibility was given to us. It would have been a neat plan very different from Caballo. But, we were supporting cast. So among the tasks given to us was to decontaminate the buses used by the repatriates. The state of our finances and logistics was not good despite great plans that i had to wear tight protective suits. We had to do it as no one else is ready to do it. And we had to clean the trucks from midnight till dawn using Chlorine solution. The suits were not to protect us from Ebola, but from the ill effects of that Chlorine solution. So i have gone full circle this year on Bio. I forgot to mention that the last suspect case of AES was queried by our team. I talked to the relatives and friends of the last guy who died andi went to where he worked, his home, and the place where he most likely got the virus. Done this, done that. But now there is no let up. The popes coming and it will be a massive undertaking to make him safe. I had no christmas vacation. Except for 1 brief moment at sea, taking a dip during Christmas. A Whitewater Christmas, tomorrow, Rizal Day my thoughts are on the Prince of the Catholic Church, and what will be the scenarios , worst and best. Except that. I was tasked to think about the worst. There are good plans already made, and my orders is to make roughshod of their plans and disrupt every assumption in their plans. Before we do that, i had to walk and drive through every inch of space where the pope will be in the Philippines. Yet, if all is well, i may not see the pope in the flesh. Because if ever i will be within a few feet of him, that means something out of the blue is happening. I call it a black swan event. So please pray that the black swans will be out doing their winter migration elsewhere but here.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 15:46:34 +0000
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