BACOLOD CITY – A Negros Occidental-born nurse who tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) after coming home from Ireland last month has already recovered, the provincial government announced yesterday.
Listed as the province’s Patient No. 4, the 41-year-old man, a naturalized Irish, hails from Barangay East in Candoni town.
He has already been discharged from the Provincial Healing Center in EB Magalona town, the report from the Capitol said.
Patient No. 4, who was asymptomatic, arrived in the country on March 17. He was among the 35 overseas Filipino worker (OFW) repatriates who traveled to Negros Occidental from Cebu on April 14.
The first result of his reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test released on April 20 came out positive. His first repeat test result which came out on May 6, on the other hand, was already negative, as well as his second repeat test released on May 13.
He is the third patient to recover among the nine confirmed COVID-19 cases in Negros Occidental.
Patient No. 1, a 41-year-old woman from EB Magalona, and Patient No. 2, a 42-year-old man from La Castellana, were the first recoveries.
Still awaiting the result of his first repeat test is Patient No. 3, a 38-year-old man from Silay City.
Like Patient No. 4, he was also part of the group from Cebu. He traveled from The Netherlands and arrived in the Philippines on March 24.
The five other patients in this province are all OFWs who were among the 55 persons – 28 from Bacolod and 27 from Negros Occidental – who arrived aboard the 2GO Group’s Malasakit Voyage on April 28.
Three of them are also being quarantined at the Provincial Healing Center.
Patient No. 5, a 27-year-old woman from La Castellana, came from Brazil; Patient No. 6, a 43-year-old man from Escalante City, traveled from Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Patient No. 7, a 45-year-old man from Talisay City, took a flight to the Philippines from Brazil and Qatar.
On the other hand, Patient No. 8, a 35-year-old man from Valladolid town, traveled to Manila from Miami, Florida, while Patient No. 9, a 27-year-old man from Bago City, journeyed also from Miami to New York going to Manila.
Their test results came out late Wednesday afternoon, and they are now isolated in a patient care center in this city.
During their arrival here, they were quarantined with the OFWs from Bacolod, but they wrote down Bago City and Valladolid as their provincial addresses when their swab samples were taken.(With a report from PNA/PN)
