Reflection on a Critical Event in the Timeline of Infectious Disease in the

Philippines

Out of the many infectious-disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics, I choose the
A(H1N1) (2009) pandemic as a critical event where I think it the government, politicians,
institutions, or the people could have done better and should have learned a lot from this time as
this proves that zoonotic disease spread would bring great health problem. H1N1 is a subtype of
influenza virus which is a communicable viral disease that causes respiratory tract infections in
the infected host which leads to symptoms such as nasal secretions, chills, fever, decreased
appetite, and lower respiratory tract disease (Jilani et al., 2021). Also, H1N1 swine influenza is
an infection that is common to pigs around the world, which is why before the H1N1 pandemic
in 2009, the influenza A(H1N1) virus had never been identified as a cause of infections in
people. In the pandemic timeline of H1N1, first cases of the A(H1N1) virus infection are
reported in Mexico and US in late April 2009. In May 2009, the Philippines along countries in
Asia reported the first cases of H1N1 until the WHO declared a worldwide pandemic alert.
Ultimately, according to the DOH, the Philippines have recorded 85,000 influenza-like illness
(ILI) and 6,000 laboratory confirmed A(H1N1). In researching about the event of A(H1N1)
virus, the three main things I have learned is that first, immediate travel ban on infected countries
are crucial. Second, there should be emergency funds or resources reserved for a time like this.
Lastly, investment on medical science research is imperative.

While completely having no cases of a pandemic scale disease in a country is almost

impossible, one of the government’s most crucial task in a pandemic is the control of further
spread of the disease and as well as the surveillance of the travelers (Chen et al., 2008). One way
to do this task of controlling the spread of viruses or disease in a country is imposing travel ban
or restrictions to and from infected countries or the source of the outbreak. Imposing travel
restriction at the source of the outbreak or infected countries had delayed the spread of the
pandemic by a few days at a national level, while it was effective in delaying the spread of the
virus internationally by a week (Chinazzi et al., 2020). These delays would give the country the
much-needed time allowance for it to prepare for the pandemic and this includes preparing test
kits, funds, thermal scanners, which would help a country fight the spreading of pandemic. Due
to the different characteristics of viruses and diseases including it’s rate of transmission,
incubation period, how sick would the person be if they were infected, it is very hard to assess
the impacts of travel ban however, it is proved that travel ban on specific countries will slow
down or at least delay its transmission.

The hardest thing in a pandemic is that we don’t know when it will hit which makes
preparing extremely hard as it would only be delayed until the next pandemic hits and I think
that this is where the Philippines failed and could do better. If there is one thing, we should have
learned in reading history books and throughout the history of humankind, is that pandemic,
highly contagious disease, and epidemic, would happen and it will most definitely happen in our
lifetime. It is not a matter of “if” it is a matter of “when” it would happen. Which is why reserve
funds, materials or resources being essential for when the pandemic happen. Although H1N1 is
not as severe as the Covid-19 pandemic in the present, preparedness effort always pays off all the
organizations that are prepared have been able to pivot as the pandemic unfolded. As I have said,
preparedness is key in any pandemic. According to the DOH’s pandemic H1N1 timeline, it is
said that on October 2009, “the Philippine government sought to ensure the availability of
vaccine supplies by requesting donated vaccines from WHO.” The government should have done
better, as a government the fastest action is to buy vaccines not to wait for donation from
organizations. It is a huge mistake to wait for donations as with vaccine, timing is everything and
vaccines should be bought quickly as possible get it into the population for herd immunization.

Whenever there is a pandemic happening, one of the first thing that we do is that we
conduct research on the virus and collect data on how it works, where it came from, which could
in turn use the information collected in the production of a vaccine. Although the Philippines
have respectable medical institutions it is not enough to provide us with information that the
world needed the most. Not only investing in medical science would get us information, but it
would also help to educate the people and understand the role of social distancing and
vaccinations during a pandemic. This would avoid individuals who avoid the vaccine even if it is
already available. The Philippine government could have learned from the lesson of A(H1N1)
pandemic back then that investing in medical science is a good investment for the future of the
country as A(H1N1) proves and warned us that animal diseases could infect humans and can
cause devastating losses. There are over 150 known zoonotic disease known worldwide which
are transmitted to humans by both wild and domestic animal, 13 of which is responsible for 2.2
million deaths a year (Faust et al., 2018). And few of these such as A(H1N1) and now covid-19
have caused global pandemic. The Philippine government should have a research team testing
various animals for these kinds of disease that could potentially cause a widespread outbreak or
even a pandemic. A(H1N1) should have served us a warning that zoonotic viruses are the ones
that will cause the largest damage and we should have not ignored this sign and have researched
more and prepare in advance. A proof of negligence of the government in terms of research
funds is the budget cut of 76 billion pesos of DOST’s research and development sector we can
improve by adding more budget in medical research.

In conclusion, the government and the agencies could do better in the future by primarily
doing action early. If there is an outbreak detected in a country which could lead to a pandemic,
impose a travel restriction as having an action early on will have an advantage. Have a system or
law which mandates the government to set aside a certain amount of money for pandemic events
so that the government will not scramble to gather funds to counter the pandemic or outbreak.
Lastly, invest more on medical science research this research would allow us to prevent
pandemic from happening. Identifying the zoonotic disease in the country can help tremendously
by having already collected the data, it would not take so much time to make the vaccine or the
vaccine formula can be made in advance. If there is one recommendation that I would make in
the perennial problem, it is to bolster the medical research and development in the country. I
believe in the limitless potential of technology and human mind. With the right innovations in
technology, I firmly believe that it is possible to solve this problem. The government should
encourage researchers, scientists, scholars, and students to shift their focus ssto innovating
medical technology by giving them grants, funds, scholarships, and other benefits. In this way
more technology and innovation focusing on medicine would surface and eventually would solve
our perennial problem.
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