PANDEMIC: DOH confirms first case of novel CORONAVIRUS in PHILIPPINES

DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III
Philippine's Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III confirms first case of novel coronavirus in the country.

First case of novel coronavirus surfaces in the Philippines. This was confirmed on January 30, Thursday.

In a news briefing yesterday, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the identified infected patient is one of the 29 people subjected to monitoring.

Watch/Read: How to avoid getting infected with novel coronavirus on this link.

The 38-year old infected nCov infected Chinese woman came to the Philippines from Wuhan, China passing through Hong Kong, on the 21st of this month. She was admitted in a government hospital on January 25.

According to known information, the virus has a two-week incubation period. Meaning, if one has the virus, it may manifest after two weeks only of infection, but the infected person (now a carrier) will be able to contaminate or infect others even on day one of infection already.

Earlier , samples from the infected patient was flown to Australia’s Victoria Infectious Disease laboratory. Samples were included on the batch from five suspected patients.

Yessterday, testing kits for the 2019 novel coronavirus also arrived from Australia which will be used by the Research Institue for Tropical Medicine for testing future patients in the country.

The 29 patients under investigation are in the following areas:

As of this post update, there are persons under investigations/ patients suspected of being infected with novel coronavirus:

  • Metro Manila – 18
  • Cental Visayas – 4
  • Western Visayas – 3
  • MIMAROPA -1
  • Eastern Visayas – 1
  • Northern Mindanao – 1
  • Davao – 1

Five of the patients were already discharged but still under monitoring. One patient was confirmed to have died of pneumonia on 29 January at the government-operated San Lazaro Hospital.

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