By J. Jala | 07:26 PM February 05, 2020
Health authorities in the province have set into motion the contact tracing mechanism of those who got in close contact with the 60-year-old Chinese woman.
The woman, who entered the country as a tourist on January 21, is now the third patient confirmed on having the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) or the Wuhan coronavirus.
Based on flight information that DOH gathered, the woman had apparently traveled to Cebu and Bohol.
It was only when she was not feeling well and sought medical check-up and was admitted in an undisclosed private hospital on Jan. 22 that samples were taken to confirm if she has contracted the virus.
In a press conference, Health Undersecretary Rolando Enrique Domingo said the Chinese came from Wuhan and traveled to Cebu on board a flight from Hong Kong on January 20.
The DOH official also said she traveled to Bohol on the same day where she was later admitted to a hospital due to fever and runny nose.
Samples were taken from the Chinese tourist on January 23 and January 24, Domingo said.
On January 29 and 30, the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory in Australia and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Muntinlupa City found the January 24 samples negative for 2019-nCov.
In a separate press conference in DOH Central Visayas (DOH-7), Dr. Jaime Bernadas explained that the latest samples taken on Jan. 24 was the one sent to the facility in Australia.
Since it was only this week that the RITM was capacitated to do the testing, the results of the Jan. 23 sample showed it was positive for the Wuhan coronavirus strain.
A patient under investigation, Bernadas pointed out, can be allowed to go after two of her test results were negative of the virus infection.
Thus, she was discharged from the hospital in Bohol. The Chinese tourist returned to China through a flight from Cebu on January 31.
