TEMPERATURE CHECK. Using a thermal scanner, medical personnel from the Department of Health-10 (DOH-10) check the temperature of arriving passengers at the Laguindingan Airport Wednesday (March 11), in light of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The DOH-10 has confirmed Thursday that a patient now confined at the Northern Mindanao Medical Center has tested positive for the coronavirus. (Jigger J. Jerusalem/davaotoday.com)
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines — Health authorities on Thursday (March 12) have now put a person who was confirmed to be positive of the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) after confinement at a local hospital on isolation.
This after the Department of Health-10 (DOH-10) has announced late Wednesday that one of the patients under monitoring (PUMs) had contracted the virus.
Said patient was confined at a hospital in Iligan City before he was put under quarantine at the DOH-run Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC) here.
In a text message Wednesday night, Dr. Ian Gonzales, DOH-10 infectious disease cluster head, said, “Yes, one case at [NMMC] is confirmed positive.”
Dr. Jose Chan, NMMC chief, has also confirmed that a patient has indeed tested positive for Covid-19.
The patient, Chan said, was on his fourth day at NMMC when diagnosed with having contracted the virus.
The patient, he said, “was complaining of shortness of breath, although he is improving.”
Chan added the admitted individual is on ventilator, a machine designed to provide mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air in and out of the lungs, to deliver breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe or breathing insufficiently.
In a press conference Thursday, Dr. Adriano Suba-an, DOH-10 regional director, said the patient, a 54-year-old Filipino male, was reported to be suffering from pneumonia while undergoing treatment in Iligan.
Suba-an said the patient’s symptoms started on February 24 and he was admitted in Iligan on March 3.
He said the patient was referred to the NMMC on March 8, as specimens were taken and sent to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Manila.
“On March 11, 2020, the result was confirmed to be positive, SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19),” Suba-an said during a press conference at a hotel here Thursday morning.
“The patient is being managed by our Infectious Diseases Specialists according to the latest [World Health Organization] guidelines,” he said, adding that the health department is conducting contact tracing or the people the patient has come in contact with before he was tested positive for Covid-19.
Suba-an said they are also implementing heightened disease surveillance through the Barangay Health Emergency Response Team in the community and through Severe Acute Respiratory Infection surveillance in the hospital.
He said the health department doesn’t want more people to get infected with the virus from patients who have contracted it locally.
“We cannot afford to have another generation of local transmission,” he said. (davaotoday.com)
