The Department of Health has reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus disease-2019 (Covid-19) in the Cordillera during its regular briefing on March 16.
DOH-Cordillera OIC Director Amelita Pangilinan said the patient is from Manabo, Abra, who is a 39-year old male, an overseas Filipino worker, who departed from the United Arab Emirates last March 2.
The patient had a two-hour layover and change of flight in Thailand before arriving in the Philippines.
On March 9, he experienced fever and colds. On March 10, he went to a hospital in La Union where his mother was admitted. There he was screened and turned out to have fever at the hospital triad area where his sample was collected.
He was then advised accordingly and went home to Manabo with his mother and siblings via ambulance.
On March 14, the DOH-CAR received the test results of the patient’s samples from the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine, which yielded positive.
The DOH-CAR closely coordinated with the local government unit of Manabo, the Abra Provincial Health Office, and the DOH-Region 1 for the implementation of infection control and prevention measures at the local level.
The patient was transferred to a level 3 hospital in San Fernando, La Union. As of March 18, DOH reported that the patient’s condition is stable and recovering.
The municipal epidemiology and surveillance unit and rural health unit of Manabo is conducting intensive information gathering and contact tracing, especially from the different municipalities where the patient travelled to.
A barangay in Manabo was placed in community quarantine and the provincial task force has limited transport within Abra.
Last week, the DOH reported 40 individuals were considered persons under investigation for Covid-19 in the region, 21 were from Baguio City, eight from Abra, six from Benguet, three from Mountain Province, and one each from Apayao and Kalinga. There is no PUI from Ifugao. Their age range is 10 months to 57 years old.
Six of the PUIs were admitted while 34 were discharged.
A total of 140 are classified as persons under monitoring. Sixty-eight are in Abra, five in Apayao, 10 in Baguio City, 17 in Benguet, 18 in Ifugao, 14 in Kalinga, and eight in Mountain Province.
Twenty-two PUMs are currently undergoing the 14-day quarantine, 118 have completed the same, but one left the country without completing the quarantine.
At the national level, there are now more than 200 confirmed cases of Covid-19 with seven recoveries and 14 deaths as of March 18.
The country upgraded its Covid-19 alert from Code Red sublevel 2, which means “there is evidence of community transmission and prevalence of cases beyond what the government can address”.
The WHO, which already considered Covid-19 a pandemic, assessed risks of acquiring the disease both in China and at the regional and global levels to be very high.
Hanna C. Lacsamana
Headlines, 3-15-2020
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