Lopez said the CHO monitored a suspected case last week involving a male individual from the Middle East who manifested symptoms of monkeypox but the RT-PCR test of the patient came out negative earlier this week.
This leaves Davao City still free from the monkeypox disease, as per Lopez.
“Ang pasabot ang manifestation sa patient is not monkeypox, it’s from another disease entity. So for now, officially, we still do not have a confirmed case of monkeypox in the city,” he said during a media forum.
Currently, there are four cases of monkeypox in the country that are all concentrated in the National Capital Region.
The Department of Health (DOH) said the fourth case was detected on August 19, 2022 wherein the patient had no documented travel history from other countries with confirmed cases of monkeypox.
Lopez said in a previous interview that it is possible for monkeypox to enter the city but assured that the city government’s response team is prepared for such an event through the Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases (ERID) Office.
The DOH in Davao Region is also establishing designated isolation facilities for monkeypox in each of the provinces as preparation for the onset of the disease.
“Each province should have identified or a designated isolation facility by the moment there is really a need to bring a suspected case to an isolation facility,” DOH-Davao assistant regional director Dr. Gerna Manatad said on August 15.
Manatad preparation of the health sectors and the local government units is a telling factor in the prevention and management of monkeypox.