NegOcc police revamps contact tracing team for COVID-19

By Glazyl Y. Masculino

BACOLOD City – The Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (Nocppo) reorganized its contact tracing team on April 23, to ensure a more systematic and comprehensive conduct of contact tracing to locate possible coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases.

Based on Department of Interior Local Government (DILG) Memorandum Circular 2020-073, the guidelines for the conduct of Expanded Testing Procedures for COVID-19 and with the recommendation of the Negros Occidental Inter-Agency Task Force against COVID-19, the Philippine National Police (PNP) must take the lead role in carrying out the said activity.

The Provincial Contact Tracing Team is composed of eight members led by an investigator from the Provincial Investigation and Detection Unit. The team will be assisted by a member of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit-Negros Occidental.

Other members are personnel from Provincial Intelligence Unit and the rest are police nurses assigned at Nocppo headquarters.

Police Colonel Romeo Baleros, Nocppo director, said that the team will be in close collaboration with the Provincial Health Office to allow maximum and timely sharing of information.

The city and municipal police stations will likewise organize their respective Contact Tracing Teams, he added.

These teams will then become part of the contact tracing network all over the province.

Negros Occidental has four COVID-19 confirmed cases and 25 suspected COVID-19 cases as of Friday.