Diaz said they will be assessing whether monkeypox patients could be mixed with those of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in quarantine facilities.
If not, he said, they might reopen other isolation facilities and use them for monkeypox patients.
“We are still on guard at the airport and various seaports in the province and ensure the health conditions of the passengers (coming in),” Diaz noted.
The official also said that the Provincial Government wants to ensure that Negros Occidental has facilities where those who will fell ill to monkeypox will be taken care of.
Last week, Bacolod City Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez has also ordered the city’s Covid-19 Action Team to monitor the visitors coming to the city to prevent the entry of monkeypox.
The first recorded case of monkeypox in the country was a 31-year-old returning Filipino who had perilously travelled to countries with documented cases of the disease, the Department of Health (DOH) earlier reported.
Meanwhile, Cadiz City District Hospital’s Annex Building is the remaining Covid-19 isolation facility in the province with 30 beds intended for those who fell ill to the disease.
Diaz said that as of August 1, there were 15 confirmed cases in the facility while 16 others are also isolated there while waiting for the results of their reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.