ILOILO – A 65-year-old resident of Guimbal town is the first patient confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in this province, the Department of Health (DOH) in Western Visayas said.
The patient was tested on March 13. The result of the test came out yesterday morning.
This was the second case in the region, according to DOH regional director Dr. Marlyn Convocar . The first positive case was reported in Bacolod City Friday night.
“The patient had no travel history to countries and cities with coronavirus cases, but was exposed to relatives who had recently travelled to Japan but where asymptomatic,” said Convocar.
The patient, she said, started to manifest symptoms like cough and fever on March 6 and was admitted to a hospital in Iloilo City on March 13 and a sample for COVID-19 testing was taken the same day.
“The official result was received this morning (on Saturday),” Convocar said, adding the patient is in unstable condition as he has concomitant ailments.
She added all persons who had close contact with the patient are considered persons under monitoring (PUMs) if they manifest no signs and symptoms, and patients under investigation (PUIs) to the close contact who has signs and symptoms.
Guimbal’s Vice Mayor Jennifer Garin Colada said the contact tracing mechanism involving the patient has already set into motion.
Colada said the man might have contracted the infection from his children who had recently visited Japan, suggesting that some of his family members might be asymptomatic carriers of the new virus.
He added the patient’s family would also be subjected to testing, and that the DOH-6 had begun contact tracing
“The first thing is contact tracing, gina-nterview kon sin-o upod sa balay, sin-o nakahalubilo sa taga-Guimbal gina-trace subong,” said Colada.
Convocar, for his part, said a lockdown cannot yet be declared in the village where the patient resides as they had not met the criteria of having two persons positive for the disease, she said.
“Based on the issuance of the central office, we can only declare a lockdown if there are two positive cases in barangay, the same with the municipality. If they can meet the definition, then we will declare the barangay as a quarantine area,” she said.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a close contact is someone who has been face to face for at least 15 minutes, or been in the same closed space for at least 2 hours, as someone who has tested positive for the COVID-19 when that person was infectious.
If a person has been identified to have had close contact with someone who is confirmed to have infection with COVID-19 while they were infectious, WHO said a 14-day self-quarantine will be recommended.
On Friday, DOH-6 confirmed the first positive case of COVID-19 in the region involving a 56-year-old Filipino male who had history of travel to the United Kingdom. The patient was reported to be on stable condition.
With these developments, Convocar, appealed to the public to be truthful in their health declaration.
“We encourage the public that if they seek consultation, they need to disclose their travel history or if they had close contact,” she said.
Overall, the Philippines now has 307 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with eight recoveries and 18 casualties, including a 65-year-old Filipino man from Quezon City who died on Tuesday but was only confirmed positive of the virus yesterday.
Gov. Arthur “Toto” Defensor Jr. has placed the entire province under enhanced community quarantine, restricting people’s movement to contain the spread of COVID-19./PN
