Cebu City Council pushes for quarantine rooms in barangays

CEBU CITY, Philippines—The Cebu City Council wants barangays (villages) here to have their own quarantine rooms to isolate anyone who shows symptoms of respiratory infections in the community.

This after the Department of Health confirmed that a five-year-old from Wuhan province, China, has tested positive to an unidentified strain of coronavirus in Cebu on Tuesday, January 21, 2020. Further tests are still being done to identify if the virus is similar to the quickly spreading 2019-nCov in China. 

Read: Non-specific pancoronavirus strain in Cebu City

On Wednesday, January 22, 2020, the City Council passed a resolution asking all barangays to establish a designated isolation room in health centers to isolate those with similar symptoms as the coronavirus-infected patient.

Councilor David Tumulak, the author of the resolution, said that this is a way to contain the fear amongst the city residents that the virus may have spread, though the DOH has no proof of such case. 

The isolation rooms will allow the barangays to study and monitor cases of respiratory infection in the barangays as precautionary measures. 

The Cebu City Health is also tasked to aid the barangays in the process of checking the respiratory illness cases and identify whether they are in any way related to the coronavirus. 

The City Health has also prepared the city’s quarantine rooms as an added safety measure. 

The DOH released guidelines to avoid this possible spread of the virus, which includes constant hand washing, practicing cover-coughing, and avoiding people with symptoms of flu like cough, colds, difficulty in breathing, and fever. 

Since coronavirus is transmitted mainly by carrier animals, the public is also asked to avoid unprotected contact with wild and farm animals. /bmjo