ALL district hospitals which are managed and run by the Provincial Government of Negros Occidental has been alerted about coronavirus.
Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said Thursday, January 23, that so far there is no case or any suspected patient of coronavirus in the province per report of the Provincial Health Office (PHO).
Provincial health officer Dr. Ernell Tumimbang has also notified the district hospitals to be aware of what is happening.
In case there will be a case of coronavirus, Lacson said an advisory has been sent to the hospitals that such patients would be referred for isolation at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Hospital.
Patients having symptoms of coronavirus will be closely monitored especially if he or she has been to Wusan, China where the said virus originated.
Lacson said the PHO already has a system in place on how to go about possible cases of coronavirus.
He encourages patients having persisting symptoms of the virus to immediately consult and visit their respective rural health clinics so that proper care would be applied by health authorities.
At least 17 people have died from a new coronavirus in China following an outbreak in the central city of Wuhan, and more than 550 cases have been reported globally.
According to the World Health Organization, coronaviruses are a family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
These viruses are transmitted between animals and people. SARS, for instance, was believed to have been transmitted from civet cats to humans while MERS travelled from a type of camel to humans.
Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.
A novel coronavirus, identified by Chinese authorities on January 7 and currently named 2019-nCoV, is a new strain that had not been previously identified in humans.