Negros Oriental Province: Stop sharing unverified claims on meningococcemia case
Hospital officials still await confirmatory test results
CEBU CITY, Philippines – The Negros Oriental Provincial Government has urged netizens not to spread unverified claims that a patient was admitted in a hospital in Dumaguete City allegedly due to meningococcemia.
In a post on their official Facebook page, the provincial government’s Public Information Office (PIO) confirmed that a patient was admitted in a hospital in Dumaguete City after “showing likely symptoms of the viral disease” and remains unstable since Wednesday, January 22, 2020.
They did not disclose whether the patient was a child, who was later referred to Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital (NOPH) for further treatment.
However, the province’s PIO said health officials from NOPH are still awaiting results from the laboratory tests to confirm if the patient indeed contracted the deadly disease.
“A patient was admitted in Holy Child Hospital (HCH) showing likely symptoms of the viral disease, and later transferred to the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital (NOPH) for further treatment. As per info from the NOPH, a blood sample has been taken from the patient by HCH for confirmatory purposes. However, the patient is unstable right now,” the statement stated.
It added that they needed official statement from the hospital as well as the Department of Health (DOH) to verify the reports.
The Negros Oriental Provincial Government also urged the public to refrain from sharing unverified posts online in order not to put the entire province and Dumaguete City “in a bad light”, and to prevent undue and unnecessary public panic.
“Those comments whether personally prepared or passed and received through texts and private messages are undoubtedly irresponsible and surely do not help solve the problem, if ever there might arise. Spreading of false and unverified information in whatever way is profoundly unacceptable,” they added.
Amid the threat of possible entry and spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus from China in the Philippines, unverified reports of a child from Dumaguete City who allegedly contracted menningococcemia made the rounds online. /bmjo
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