The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Wednesday said only four local government units (LGU) in Metro Manila have complied with contact tracing protocols.

In a radio interview, Interior Undersecretary for Operations Epimaco Densing III said the standard protocol in contact tracing is one is a ratio of one to 800.

“You should have one contact tracer in every 800 (individuals) in the population. Based on the statistics I gathered, only Manila, Pateros, San Juan and Taguig (City) meet the standards. The rest of the cities in Metro Manila did not have enough contact tracers,” Densing said.

Densing said they are hoping that the remaining cities, and even those outside Metro Manila, will follow the standard number of contact tracers.

“This is also one way to give jobs for the people because if you hire a contact tracer and (that person) has no job before that, you are now giving some economic activities to our fellow Filipino and our economy needs it,” he said.

Densing urged LGU officials to exert more effort in their contact tracing as there is an allocated budget for the program.

“There is a directive that most of our budgets for 2021 will have a budget for contact tracers so if they did not do it, that is negligence to the people and they did not follow the standards for contact tracing,'' said Densing.

He said the DILG last year hired 50,000 contact tracers and 30 percent of their contracts were renewed.

“So again, it is the responsibility of the local government that they should have contact tracers and follow the 1 is to 800 ratio based on World Health Organization (WHO) standards,” Densing said.

Based on the latest Department of Health (DOH) case bulletin, Metro Manila recorded 1,244 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday. Ella Dionisio/DMS