Philippines: Disease and Medical Technology

By: Joseph Seabra

The Philippines as mentioned before is a developing nation and is experiencing large amounts of technological and infrastructural growth, but the country is also a small island nation that is in a subtropical climate perfect for the culmination of diseases and illnesses. The country of the Philippines has experienced multiple disease outbreaks with the country having back to back outbreaks with the measles and dengue. In 2019 the country had a reported 42,000 cases of measles with 560 deaths, which was then immediately followed by “350,000 cases of dengue” which had 1,300 related deaths (Santos, 2019). According to the website DW Made for Minds the amount of Filipino people getting vaccinations has decreased from “88% in 2013” to only “70% in 2018”, due to a “Dengue vaccine scare in 2017” (Santos, 2019). This lack of vaccinations within the country could be a reason as to why the country has experienced multiple disease outbreaks. Though if the government of the Philippines was able to introduce technologies that could increase vaccinations the country would not have this issue.

There are currently multiple technologies being developed to increase the amount of people who receive and understand vaccines, though one technology that I can see being  implemented in the Philippines the most effectively is SMS Text messages to citizens phones about potential illnesses present in their area. According to the website Vaccines Today the implementation of this technology would not be a solution to the spread of diseases within an area. Though it would allow for people to become aware of potential issues and “ ‘nudge’ people to think about vaccination or point them towards their nearest clinic.” (Finnegan, 2018). The reason that the SMS Text message platform is an efficient way to help potentially increase the amount of vaccines in the Philippines is due to most Filipino people spending large amounts of time on their phones. As mentioned before the average Filipino spends around “3 hours and 57 minutes a day on social media sites, mainly on Facebook” which means it would be more likely that people would see the message (Camus, 2018).

The use of SMS text messaging as a technology that could increase the number of vaccines within the Philippines and stop the spread of diseases within the country is quite a simple but very effective tool that should be utilized by the government of the Philippines.

(Dantes, 2014)

 The Philippines is a nation that is trying to rapidly develop its infrastructure, and if the country can adopt this method to better inform its citizens it could better market itself to the rest of the world. The Country relies heavily on tourism for the growth of its infrastructure and technology, and therefore it must maintain an environment free of disease and sickness.

References

Camus, M. (2018). PH is world leader in social media usage. In Inquirer.net. Retrieved November 25, 2019, from https://business.inquirer.net/246015/ph-world-leader-social-media-usage

Dantes, G. (2014). Polio and measles vaccinations in Manila in 2014. In NewYork Times. Retrieved November 25, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/world/asia/philippines-polio-outbreak-.html

Finnegan, G. (2018). ADULT VACCINATION: CAN TECHNOLOGY HELP IMPROVE ACCESS AND UPTAKE?. In Vaccines Today. Retrieved November 25, 2019, from https://www.vaccinestoday.eu/stories/adult-vaccination-can-technology-help-improve-access-and-uptake/ 

Santos, A. (2019). Philippines struggling to cope with back-to-back disease outbreaks. In dw.com. Retrieved November 25, 2019, from  https://www.dw.com/en/philippines-struggling-to-cope-with-back-to-back-disease-outbreaks/a-51084152