Cotabato City—The Bangsamoro Government has enlisted young people as contact tracers to be deployed this week to suspected areas of transmission of the dreaded corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Bangsamoro Interior and Local Governments Minister Naguib Sinarimbo said the hiring process for 1,480 contractual contact tracers was completed Monday for all five provinces and special geographic areas of the region
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) is composed of the provinces of Basilan, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, plus the cities of Lamitan, Marawi, and disputably, this city. In Cotabato Province, 63 barangays voted to join BARMM in the February 2019 plebiscite.
Mostly fresh graduates and on first employment experience, the number of CTs hired is proportionate to the number of recorded COVID-19 cases in each of BARMM’s provincial LGUs—Lanao Sur, Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi— and the 63 barangays of Cotabato Province comprising the region’s SGA.
Lanao Sur has had 697 confirmed cases of COVID-19, but with a high recovery rate of 515, as against a minimal level of death cases at 29.
BARMM has had six new COVID-19 cases; 258 active cases; 1,219 total cases, so far; a case of new recovery; and 915 patients who have recovered. The region has had 46 cases of COVID-19-related deaths, thus far.
Maguindanao has had confirmed cases with 51 cases of recovery; Basilan and Lamitan City has 119 cases with 109 cases of patients recovery; Tawi-Tawi 115 confirmed cases with 68 cases of patients recovery and Sulu has had 120 confirmed cases and 120 cases of patients recovery with no reported case of death.
Sinarimbo said the MILG main regional office at the Bangsamoro Government Center here, had augmented its workforce with 115 contact tracers.