Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 9) — There are now over 260 people under the government’s watch for a possible infection of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the country, the Department of Health said Saturday.
The DOH reported that the number of people under observation has risen to 267 as of noon on Saturday. On Friday, the number of people being watched was at 215.
The latest figure includes the three confirmed cases which were earlier reported: a 44-year-old man who died from the infection, his partner who was a 38-year-old woman and another woman who was 60 years old. All confirmed cases were Chinese nationals who had history of traveling to Wuhan — the Chinese city at the center of the 2019-nCoV outbreak — before coming to the Philippines.
DOH indicated that 230 of these people being monitored are admitted in a hospital, 19 have been discharged while two have died. Health officials earlier announced that two people under observation died of pneumonia — one tested negative for the virus while the test results for the other has not been released yet; but the DOH clarified that he did not die from 2019-nCoV. The other 13 were filed under “others.”
Health Secretary Francisco Duque earlier revelaed that some people under observation refused to be confined in a hospital. He urged them and the rest of the public to cooperate with authorities as they try to prevent the spread of the infection in the country.
More than 700 people — mostly from China — have died from the 2019-nCoV and infected more than 34,400 people across 27 countries, CNN reported.
