Department of Health confirmed Wednesday the 3rd case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the Philippines. The Chinese woman, however, has been discharged and returned to China.
Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo said the patient is a 60-year-old woman from Wuhan, China. She arrived in Cebu City on January 20 via Hong Kong. She then traveled to a resort in Bohol.
“She is the third confirmed 2019-nCoV Acute Respiratory Disease case in the country,” DOH said in a statement.
Doming said the patient fell ill on her first day in Bohol on January 22. She first stayed with her companions in her hotel but was immediately confined to a hospital the same day.
Health experts took two sets of samples for testing from the patient — one on January 23, which was submitted to the Philippines’ Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. The second sample was taken on January 24, which was sent to RITM and the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL) in Australia.
The results of tests by RITM and VIDRL for the sample taken on January 24 “came back negative,” Domingo said.
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Philippines confirms 3rd case of nCoV; patient returned to China
Results of the tests, both by RITM and the VIDRL, on the January 24 “came back negative,” Domingo said. They were received in January. 29 and 30.
“Upon recovery of the patient, she was discharged and was allowed to return to China via Cebu last January 31,” the health department said.
But when the RITM tested the sample taken from the patient on January 23, the results came back positive. The RITM informed the DOH about the findings on February 3.
Domingo said the DOH Epidemiology Bureau has started tracking people who may have interacted or been near the patient, especially those in her hotel. The woman’s companions did not exhibit symptoms, he said.
The health department does not consider the Chinese woman infectious by January 31 when she was discharged from the hospital and was allowed to travel back to China.
They are still trying to reach out to the patient to inform her of her condition.