Despite limitations brought about by the \u201cnetwork blackout,\u201d the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is continuing its operations to screen passengers at the airport for the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS.<\/p>\n
According to Warren Villagomez, CHCC Public Health and Hospital Preparedness Program director, the MERS screening operation at the Francisco C. Ada-Saipan International Airport is ongoing and they have no issues with communications.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been responding and meeting and there wasn\u2019t any communication barriers,\u201d Villagomez said. \u201cWe have been working and focusing on the MERS issue and it is still ongoing and the latest development is that the identified staff has completed the badge process, meaning having access through the airport and the secure side of the airport.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted that the construction of an isolation, screening, quarantine site at the airport is ongoing and should be done soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe effort is there on CHCC\u2019s side and management. So we can shift the room into isolation but also making sure it doesn\u2019t cross-contaminate. The recommendation is to identify, mitigate, and then transport to an area where it is suitable for longer-term care,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The site is called an \u201cAll Hazard Screen Disease Area\u201d that not only will be used for MERS but also other outbreaks that could possibly enter the CNMI. CHCC medical director Dr. John Doyle said the area had been designed and designated.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re set up at between arrival gate [of the Saipan International Airport] and the CNMI Customs and Border Protection. So we\u2019ll have the questionnaires coming out of the plane if it becomes necessary as a line of defense. The second line of defense is us, screening anything that comes back positive coming off the plane,\u201d Doyle said.<\/p>\n
Doyle said that CBP is the third line of defense. There are also medical supplies in the area but not the whole equipment until construction is done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite limitations brought about by the \u201cnetwork blackout,\u201d the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is continuing its…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2130,666,6049,5090],"class_list":["post-207887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cbp","tag-chcc","tag-john-doyle","tag-mers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}