Known as the ‘science’ behind the PGH Crisis Management Team, Dr. Regina Pascua-Berba delivered the keynote speech during the celebration of UP Manila’s 41st year of autonomy and 38th UP Manila day on October 26, 2020 via Zoom and Facebook live.

The clinical epidemiology researcher and infectious diesease specialist shared her stories of battling three deadly diseases. The first story was the extraordinary journey that the HIV and AIDS saga took: from knowing nothing about HIV which began the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s; to the present, when HIV patients live long lives comparable to non-infected individuals. Millions of lives have been saved by the scale-up of antiretroviral therapy and the number of new HIV cases and deaths from AIDS have markedly and consistently gone down for a decade now. Sadly, the world still sees new HIV infections. For four decades, stigma, discrimination, and widespread inequalities in accessing life-saving treatment are still major barriers to its full control.

The second story is about the birth of the Philippine Coalition Against Tuberculosis (PhilCAT). At a time when the Philippines had one of the highest levels of TB in the world, PhilCAT was created by a group of advocates for its prevention and management; while sitting together in a traffic jam in Bangkok after attending a TB conference. PhilCAT grew to a 65-member collaboration of groups, professional societies, and civic organizations that carried the vision of zero TB suffering and deaths. Dr. Camilo Roa, founding chair of PhilCAT, is one of the main movers who made the opening of the TB-DOTS Program possible. Through its efforts, PhilCAT was able to launch TB-DOTS in the Philippines which significantly curbed the cases of active tuberculosis in the country.

Transforming a university hospital into a COVID referral center is in her own words, “both breathtaking and challenging, which required every scientific knowledge I had”. At the core of the COVID-19 response was the Hospital Infection Control Unit (HICU) where Dr. Berba is chief. HICU became the center point for policies, training, implementation, inspection, surveillance, research, and decision making. She described the pace as too hectic such that they had no time to become depressed, feel lost, or get tired. Rapid infrastructure changes were made to make the workplace safe; and add to these is a unidirectional natural airflow system with giant fans and exhaust systems to achieve the required 12 air exchanges per hour. The pre-COVID emergency room with hundreds of patients became COVID ER, WARDS, and ICUs.

Dr. Berba expressed how fortunate she was to have a dedicated team, strong faculty, hardworking group of fellows, and supportive administration to fight a virus we all knew very little about. After the second month of operations, close to 90% of UPPGH personnel were tested for COVID and it showed a very low infection rate considering the high burden of COVID-19 infections we were exposed to.

She emphasized however, that we cannot rest on our successes as there is still so much to do. “Protect yourselves. The fight is not yet over. Anticipate exposures, potential exposures, and reduce those exposures accordingly,” she cautioned. She and her team continue with Solidarity Trials and several studies in the search for cures for the new pandemic.

Dr. Berba capped her speech with the 3S that World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared are needed to fight COVID-19: Science, Solutions, and Solidarity. To these, she added more S: Service to do more, Sense of hope, faith, and joy, and Spirit of bayanihan to keep us going through this uncertainty.

Dr. Berba, member of UPCM Class 1987, was awarded Outstanding Researcher (2015) and Outstanding Medical Service Award (2017) by the UP Medical Alumni Society and UP Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award in Health Research and Education (2018). She is the National Chair of PhilCAT and leads the Blood Infection Committee and the Leptospirosis Task Force that shape policies and manage programs to improve health outcomes among the poor and indigent patients.

Anne Marie Alto
Featured in UP Manila Healthscape (Special COVID-19 Issue No. 19, 15 November 2020)