CEBU CITY, Philippines – Two of the 49 patients confirmed to have the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the country are now confined in hospitals based in Visayas and Mindanao, recent data from the Department of Health (DOH) shows.
DOH’s summary of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Philippines, issued on March 11, 2020, disclosed the name of the health facilities where the patients are admitted, their recent travel history, age, sex, place of residence, and the dates on the onset of their symptoms and the confirmatory laboratory test results.
As of March 11, the number of individuals infected with COVID-19 in the Philippines has jumped to 49.
Patient 39
Based on the list, Patient No. 39 – a 64-year-old Filipino male – is admitted in Allied Care Experts (ACE) Dumaguete Doctors Inc., a privately owned hospital based in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental which is part of Central Visayas region.
DOH said the patient, whose address is still being verified, visited Greenhills Mall. They earlier traced two other individuals who tested positive of the novel coronavirus to the mall which is located in San Juan City, Metro Manila.
Dr. Liland Estacion, Incident Command System Commander and Integrated Provincial Health Office chief, said the patient is in critical condition and connected to a ventilator. Estacion also said they have commenced contact tracing.
DOH stated Patient 39 started showing symptoms on March 9, and two days later, they received confirmatory results that he contracted the virus.
Patient 40
Meanwhile, a 54-year-old male is now confined in Northern Mindanao Medical Center in Cagayan de Oro City after he also tested positive of COVID-19. He is the 40th patient in the country.
According to DOH’s data, Patient 40 has no recent travel history to COVID-19 affected countries and has no recent contact with those who were earlier found positive of the virus. They added that the onset of his symptoms started on February 24. Like Patient 39, his laboratory results confirming that he had the disease was received on March 11.
Global data
As of March 11, COVID-19 has infected 121, 061 patients worldwide, with Italy now as the country outside of China with the most number of cases at 10,149.
Italy was followed by Iran with 9,000 and South Korea with 7,755 cases.
The number of patients who recovered from the disease, at 66,216, now constitute more than half of the total number of confirmed cases. The death toll, on the other hand, has reached the 4,000 mark./rcg