Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 7) — A total of 42 people who came in contact with the three novel coronavirus-infected Chinese nationals in the country are now considered “persons under investigation” or those placed under watch for possible infection.
The Department of Health announced in a press briefing on Friday it has traced 441 people who had close contact with the Chinese couple that both tested positive for the new coronavirus called 2019-nCoV. They include 379 passengers and crew members and 62 people that the pair interacted with in hotels, resorts, and other places they visited in January.
The Chinese couple arrived via Cebu Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Cebu on January 21 and took a connecting flight to Dumaguete. They flew to Manila via a Philippine Airlines flight on January 25.
Five days later, the DOH reported that the 38-year-old female tested positive for the 2019-nCoV. Her partner, a 44-year-old Chinese man died of acute respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus on February 1 – making him the first to die of the disease outside China, where the virus was discovered in Wuhan City.
Of the 441 people identified by authorities to have had contact with the couple, 32 were categorized as persons under investigation, Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo said. People with a history of travel from Wuhan and those who had contact with infected people are considered “patients under investigation” if they show flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, and cold.
A total of 203 individuals were placed on home quarantine because they showed no signs and symptoms, Domingo said, while the remaining 206 have yet to be interviewed because the contact details they had provided were “erroneous.”
Contract tracing has also kicked in for the 60-year-old Chinese woman who was the third to test positive for the 2019-nCoV in the Philippines. Domingo said authorities have so far traced 106 contacts, including passengers who flew with her to Cebu City from Wuhan via Hong Kong on January 20.
Of those contacted, four have shown symptoms, Domingo said, while 22 were asked to stay in their homes.
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In a Senate hearing on Tuesday, the DOH was criticized over its failure to track people who may have come in contact with the infected Chinese couple. Health Secretary Francisco Duque said the department had accessed only 17 percent of the couple’s co-passengers then.
The country now has 215 “persons under investigation” – 184 are currently admitted and isolated in hospitals, nine refused admission, and 17 were discharged but remain under strict monitoring, the DOH said.
The overall figure also includes the Philippines’ first three confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV — and the two patients who died due to other causes.
Domingo on Friday said the first case already yielded a negative result for the virus, indicating that her health is improving. But she has to test negative twice before being allowed to go home, he added.
The new coronavirus has killed more than 630 people, mostly in China, the world’s most populous country. It has also infected more than 31,400 people across 28 countries and territories, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering that tracks coronavirus cases across the world. Two fatalities were reported outside China’s mainland – one each in the Philippines and Hong Kong.
