BACOLOD City – Health officials here are closely monitoring an individual considered as “person under investigation” (PUIs) for possible infection of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran, head of the City Inter-Agency Task Force against COVID-19, said the new PUI is a female who has a travel history from Singapore. She arrived on Feb. 26 and showed to have shown flu-like symptoms on March 6.
Familiaran said a swab sample was already taken from her for confirmatory test at the Department of Health’s Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.
Familiaran disclosed there 19 persons under monitoring (PUMs) in the city as of March 11. These include the 15 out of the initial 23, eight of whom have been cleared, and four new ones.
The vice mayor also said that a resident of E.B. Magalona, Negros Occidental, who was on Tuesday tagged as a PUI, was downgraded to PUM after his confirmatory result for COVID-19 yielded negative results.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), people can catch COVID-19 from others who have the virus. The disease can spread from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth which are spread when a person with COVID-19 coughs or exhales. These droplets land on objects and surfaces around the person.
Other people then catch COVID-19 by touching these objects or surfaces, then touching their eyes, nose or mouth.
People can also catch COVID-19 if they breathe in droplets from a person with COVID-19 who coughs out or exhales droplets. This is why it is important to stay more than one meter (three feet) away from a person who is sick.
WHO said the most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, tiredness, and dry cough.
Some patients may have aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat or diarrhea.
These symptoms are usually mild and begin gradually. Some people become infected but don’t develop any symptoms and don’t feel unwell.
Most people (about 80 percent) recover from the disease without needing special treatment.
Around one out of every 6 people who gets COVID-19 becomes seriously ill and develops difficulty breathing.
Older people, and those with underlying medical problems like high blood pressure, heart problems or diabetes, are more likely to develop serious illness.
People with fever, cough and difficulty breathing should seek medical attention./PN
