THREE of the four patients under investigation (PUI) for 2019 novel coronavirus acute respiratory disease (2019–nCoV ARD) tested negative.
Doctor Jennifer Joyce Pira, Medical Officer IV of the Disease Prevention and Control Cluster (DPCC) of the Department of Health–Cordillera (DOH - CAR), said the region remains 2019–nCoV free.
“As of February 10, we still have four PUIs in Baguio City. There are two from Benguet, one from Baguio and one from Mountain Province with three females and one male with age ranging from 2 to 57 years old,” Pira said.
Pira said the patients have the common symptoms of the common cough, colds, with itchy throats and difficulty of breathing and body weakness.
The medical specialist explained that following the three negative results of specimen samples forwarded to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) for possible cases of the 2019-nCov ARD.
Pira said this is a good news for the region as it awaits for the medical result of the remaining case.
“These three PUI cases is a 75% confirmed negative for the 2019-nCoV ARD, and the status of all the patients are stable and we are still awaiting for the results of the other admitted case,” Pira stated.
Meanwhile, DOH–CAR said they have yet to confirm alleged reports of possible PUI cases in the Province of Abra.
“As of today, we have reports that are still being verified which is not reflected in our report. To be classified as PUI’s, the person must fit into the case definition. However, since it’s still being verified by our provincial DOH Office, close coordination is being done by our health offices and as of today, we still do not have any final verification on how the status of the patients are at present. Any case must have to be verified first before we would put it as a PUI because once it has been verified, it would be sent to central office and then it will be Secretary (Francisco) Duque who will be releasing the official number of PUI’s,” Pira added.
As per classification of the health department, persons having four of five indicators for 2019-nCovARD are placed under PUI while those having one of the five indicators of the said disease are categorized as Persons Under Monitoring (PUM).
The indicators for PUI patients are those having signs and symptoms of fever, cough and colds, having a history of travel to China, and he/she has a history of exposure to those with confirmed cases of the novel corona virus while for PUM’s, a patient may only have one of the said indicators.
DOH–CAR continues to remind the public to practice proper hand hygiene, drinking lots of fluids, staying away from crowded areas, and to practice a healthy lifestyle.