Two returning Oversees Filipino Workers have volunteered to undergo isolation at the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital (NOPH) for routine testing of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus (MERS-CoV).
Dr. Socrates Villamor, chief of the Department of Health (DOH) provincial office, disclosed that the two female OFWs from Negros Oriental were located a week after one of them contacted the DOH hotline in Metro Manila following the publication of the list of passengers on board an international flight that arrived last Wednesday.
The DOH main office then contacted the regional DOH office in Cebu to inform authorities of the presence of the OFW in Dumaguete who wanted to submit herself for quarantine, Villamor said.
One OFW is from Tayawan, Bayawan City and the other is from Dumaguete City. Their names were not given.
Flight EY0424 of Etihad Airways that arrived Wednesday of last week from the United Arab Emirates carried 414 people on board, including a male nurse who initially tested positive of MERS-CoV but was later cleared by the DOH following a battery of tests in the Philippines.
The unidentified male nurse had earlier come into contact with a Filipino paramedic in the UAE who died later of the virus. The nurse and his family had already left for the Philippines when UAE authorities allegedly reported that he was found positive of the MERS-CoV but repeat tests by the DOH showed otherwise.
The OFW from Dumaguete confirmed to Dr. Villamor that, indeed, she was on that same flight and her name was on the published list. She further disclosed to the DOH provincial chief that she took a connecting flight from the UAE to Manila and then on to Dumaguete, arriving here Wednesday.
Both OFWs are now under quarantine, awaiting results of throat swab samples taken from them and forwarded to the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) for testing.
Until the results are out, and the two are found negative of the MERS-CoV, they shall remain under quarantine as a precautionary measure, Dr. Villamor explained.
Both appear to be asymptomatic, however, but nevertheless they cannot be discharged unless the test results are released, he added.
So far, media reports say about 100 passengers on that flight had tested negative of the virus.
Dr. Villamor thanked the two passengers and their families for being cooperative in their voluntary move to undergo quarantine unlike in other areas, such as Cebu, where some had shown resistance to the preventive measure undertaken by the DOH. (PNA)
