WITH the lifting of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency, the Department of Health (DOH) said it will now integrate the weekly COVID-19 case bulletin to its regular reporting of all notifiable diseases in the country.
Based on Department Circular No. 2023-0324, the DOH said there will be changes in the manner by which it will report and communicate the COVID-19 cases update to the public.
From the release of weekly case bulletins, the DOH said it will still be done weekly but will just be included in the other notifiable diseases.
Similarly, it said the daily updating in the DOH COVID-19 tracker will just be done weekly.
The DOH started weekly COVID-19 case bulletins instead of the daily case bulletin way back in March 2022.
Despite the changes, the DOH stressed that there must be continued mandatory reporting of cases and laboratory results to the official information systems of the health department.
It said COVID-19 surveillance protocols, such as case definitions, confirmatory testing, whole genome sequencing, shall also continue to be implemented.
“Whilst the State of Public Health Emergency has already been lifted, the health sector shall continue to remain vigilant to ensure adequate health system capacity in the event that it is required,” said the DOH.
“Continued surveillance is necessary to minimize the risk of outbreaks and/or severe disease in settings with high-risk individuals,” it added.
