PH Ambassador to Austria Shares PH Experience with IAEA’s COVID-19 Assistance

Philippine Ambassador Maria Cleofe Natividad (top right) joins International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi (bottom right) and United Kingdom Ambassador Dave Hall (bottom left) for a panel discussion on the IAEA’s COVID-19 response. Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP) Executive Director Elena Sokova (top left) moderated the panel. (Vienna PE photo)

VIENNA 16 July 2020 – Philippine Ambassador to Austria Maria Cleofe R. Natividad shared how the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assisted the Philippines in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic, in a webinar hosted by the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP) on 15 July 2020. A recording of the webinar is available at https://youtu.be/VlApDlOBzDw.

The IAEA’s assistance package to its Member States contains equipment and materials for a nuclear-derived technique called “real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction” (RT-PCR), which remains the gold standard in COVID-19 testing, since it detects the presence of the actual virus itself. 

As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in the Philippines, the IAEA’s assistance will support the efforts of the Philippine Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) in managing the pandemic in the country through its T3 Strategy: “Test, Trace and Treat”.  

Moving forward, the Ambassador also expressed the Philippines’ support for the Agency’s Zoonotic Disease Integrated Action (ZODIAC) project, which aims to build the capacity of Member States in responding to future pandemics caused by zoonotic diseases. END

For more information, visit https://www.viennape.dfa.gov.ph, https://www.philippine-embassy.at,  https://www.facebook.com/PHLinAustria/, or https://www.twitter.com/PHLinAustria.