MANILA — Upang mas mahusay na pagsama-samahin ang pananaliksik, mga mapagkukunan ng kaalaman at mga bagong data na may kaugnayan sa pandemya, itinulak ni Pangulong Marcos noong Huwebes ang pagpasa ng mga hakbang sa paglikha ng isang virology institute at isang disease control center at hinimok ang mga health researcher na ipagpatuloy ang pagpapalitan ng impormasyon dahil sa umuusbong na Covid -19.

“We have been in consultation with the House of Representatives and the Senate to bring these — to create these agencies so that we can bring them to bear in what we are up to now continuing to have to fight,” sinabi ng Pangulo sa pagdiriwang ng 15th Philippine national health research system week sa Pampanga.

“We will continue to work so that our people are safer, so that our citizens have better access to health care and so that… the quality of our health care will improve,” dagdag niya.

Ang mga hakbang na naglalayong lumikha ng Virology Institute of the Philippines at isang disease control center ay kasama sa 19 na priority bill ni Marcos.

Dahil sa nagmu-mutate ang virus, binigyang-diin ni Marcos, na dalawang beses nang nahawaan ng Covid-19, ang kahalagahan ng pagpapanatili ng bukas na isipan at tuluy-tuloy na daloy ng impormasyon sa mga ahensya.

“All of these things just — have kept coming at us. It has gotten to the point where I always — I’m hesitant to say we are at the tail end of the pandemic. Every time I say that, there’s a new surge,” wika ni Marcos.

“The first meeting that Usec. (Rosario) Vergeire and I had, I said, ‘It seems that it is now over. It seems that we are at the tail end of the pandemic.’ And here we come again with a new variant of coronavirus… of Omicron that now we have to deal with, that you have to genome sequence again, that we have to find a booster so that the people are fully immunized,” dagdag pa niya, na tinutukoy ang Department of Health officer-in-charge na dumalo rin sa event sa Pampanga.