Author: Padayon UP

UP CoPES is the system-wide umbrella committee for various psychosocial support programs being implemented by Pahinungod in UP’s constituent universities. It has three working areas: kamalayan (awareness promotion); ugnayan (setting up referral mechanisms, partnerships, support); and, kasanayan (training volunteers who can, in turn, also train others).

With the Ugnayan ng Pahinungòd celebrating its first year of reactivation under UP President Danilo Concepcion, as the official volunteer service program of the UP System, Pahinungòd Constituent Universities can now also collaborate through UP CoPES to coordinate and improve the psychosocial aspect of their volunteer and public service efforts. Through this body, UP’s CUs may combine their strengths to provide swift, robust solutions to emergencies, as well as to share best practices in training and public service.

The University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) has collaborated with the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) for the seventh episode of the “Edu-Hack: Navigating a Turbulent Educational Landscape.”

UPLB formally opened its COVID-19 Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL) in ceremonies held on July 10 at the site.

The UPLB-CMDL will serve as a subnational testing center for Laguna and nearby provinces, thereby helping ease a major bottleneck in the COVID-19 response in the country.

Experts believe that to fight COVID-19, the country needs to increase its testing capacity. To address this, a 2-part online lecture series dubbed as the UP TRAINS Projects (UP TRAINS) was recently designed by experts from the National Institutes of Health in UP Manila and the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology in UP […]

This Weekly Bulletin highlights the different COVID-19 responses of the eight UP Constituent Universities and their involvement in various public service initiatives during the pandemic. It features the UP System Report on the CUs’ COVID-19 efforts from June 16 to 30.

At first glance, the field of agricultural biotechnology (agri biotech) does not seem to have any relation at all to fighting a pandemic. But according to Dr. Flerida A. Cariño, professor of biochemistry at UP Diliman, agri biotech has a bigger role in countering the current COVID-19 crisis than most people realize.

She said that the techniques and tools used in agri biotech are the same ones used in molecular biology and biotechnology, a field that facilitates virus detection, disease management and treatment, and development of vaccines and therapeutics.

The UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team (UP PRT) launches new features in endcov.ph, a web portal created to provide the public with vital information and tools in the fight against COVID-19.

Since it’s launch in April, the UP PRT has contributed new resources to the dashboard including features that show Case Projections, the State of Transmissions in NCR based on LGU data, Municipal/City Density Map based on current active cases, and a Policy Sourcebook on COVID-19.

How risky are your job and workplace in this time of COVID-19 pandemic?

You can calculate this using job and workplace risk calculators developed by UPLB biomathematicians based at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Physics (IMSP) of the College of Arts and Sciences.

The two modeling tools called the Job Risk Calculator and the Workplace Outbreak Simulator, provide answers to these crucial questions in just a few clicks. These two platforms are free and can be accessed online.

Ma. Rita Villanueva-Tamse teaches in the UP Open University (UPOU) Master of Arts in Nursing (MAN) program and at the UP Manila College of Nursing, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She is a former chief of the UP Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) Division of Clinical Nursing Operations and a former deputy director for Nursing at the same hospital. She has almost 40 years of experience in nursing administration.

Even with COVID-19 putting a strain on the country’s healthcare system and economy, experts have found that the world’s indigenous peoples have been disproportionately affected. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs recently cited that their relatively poor access to healthcare, higher rates of communicable and non-communicable diseases, and lack of access to essential services make indigenous communities especially vulnerable to the ravages of a global pandemic.

As part of their mandate of social responsibility, the UP Badminton Association in Diliman (UP BadAss) has organized two projects to assist the indigenous communities, particularly the Itneg, of Namarabar, Peñarrubia, Abra to find a partial solution to these problems.