A THOMASIAN physician and health reform advocate has been tapped to provide medical expertise for the National Action Plan (NAP) to combat the Covid-19 outbreak.
Faculty of Medicine and Surgery alumnus Dr. Anthony Leachon was tapped by Malacañan Palace to assist Secretary Carlito Galvez, chief implementer of the NAP under the National Task Force on Covid-19.
Leachon will be joined by East Avenue Medical Center chief Dr. Emmanuel Bueno and Dr. Teodoro Herbosa, executive vice president of the University of the Philippines (UP) and former health undersecretary.
According to Leachon, the extension of the Enhanced Community Quarantine, mass testing, delivery of personal protective equipment to healthcare workers, and establishment of Covid Command Centers or CCCs were included in their proposals to improve the NAP.
“Mass testings would be the game changer not only now but for the long haul and before the arrival of the vaccine,” Leachon told the Varsitarian. “The granularity of data will lead us to the right interventions—I think they need to follow the guidelines and comply with rigor.”
Dr. Leachon has also suggested the passage of an epidemic law that would provide protocols for managing outbreaks of virus and diseases, as well as the setting up of facilities throughout the country to aid citizens outside Manila.
Leachon airs daily Facebook Live sessions on Covid-19 and the NAP, to raise funds and to honor his colleagues and friends who have succumbed to the virus.
Leachon graduated from the University in 1985 and became a medical board exams topnotcher in June 1986.
He finished his residency in internal medicine at Manila Doctors Hospital, where he practices as an internist and cardiologist.
He worked as a consultant for the Department of Health on noncommunicable diseases in 2012.
