Department of Health Secretary Enrique Ona, answers questions from reporters during a press briefing on the status of the MERS-Cov (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus) in the country at at press briefing at the VIP lounge of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminal 3 on Wednesday. (INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE)
The PNP Regional Office in Central Visayas is tracking 14 passengers of Ethiad Airways Flight EY 0424 who may have been exposed to the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome or MERS Coronavirus.
The 14 passengers are from the provinces of Negros Oriental, Bohol and Cebu, said Senior Supt. Erson Digal, chief of the Regional Operations Plans Division.
Police already have the names and contact numbers of the passengers.
Some were already contacted and said they were willing to undergo testing at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center or VSMMC in Cebu City.
Sent home
Last Friday evening, DOH-7 assisted four patients on board an ambulance from Pinamungajan town in midwest Cebu to go to the VSMMC.
Four of them, who were on a flight home from a pilgrimage abroad, were among the 14 being traced.
They four tested negative and were sent home, said Dr. Expedito Medalla of the DOH-7 Health Emergency Management.
Not all were from Pinamungajan town but from other locations.
There is no epidemic of MERS in the Philippines and the World Health Organization has not issued any restrictions on traveling to or from the Middle East, where more than 1 million Filipinos work.
Digal and the DOH-7 had an emergency meeting Friday evening to discuss the tracking and information dissemination on the MERS Coronavirus.
Dr. Medalla said 14 is the initial number of passengers from Region-7 on board EY 0242.
The DOH is waiting for a complete manifest of passengers.
A male nurse together with 417 other passengers arrived in the country from Abu Dhabi last April . 15.
The nurse later tested negative of the MERS Coronavirus.
Nonoy Mongaya, media officer of the VSMMC said the national government hospital has been on Code White alert since April 16 in observance of the Holy Week.