80% of persons who came in contact with 2 Lapu COVID-19 cases identified

Mitos Sheila Roco (left), HEMS coordinator of LLCHO, said that 80 percent of individuals has already been contact-traced from two COVID-19 positive patients in the city. | Futch Anthony Inso

LAPU-LAPU CITY, Philippines — Eighty percent of individuals that have physical contacts with the two coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) positive patients were already identified by the Lapu-Lapu City Health Office (LLCHO).

Mitos Sheila Roco, Health Emergency Management Staff (HEMS) coordinator of LLCHO, told CDN Digital that for the first patient, they had identified 51 persons who had physical contact with the patient.

Meanwhile, for the second patient, the LLCHO has identified 42 individuals. These individuals will be subjected to a 14-day mandatory quarantine.

“Naka-contact trace na mi sa duha ka patient, and so far wala ra man po’y ni-develop (nga symptoms) sa mga na-contact trace namo. At the same time, cooperative ra pod silang tanan. So wala ra po’y problema,” Roco said.

(We have already done contact tracing on the persons who have come in contact with the two patients, and so far no one had developed (any symptoms). At the same time, they were all cooperative and so we had no problem with that.)

Read more: Chan ‘locks down’ homes of 2 COVID-19 cases in Lapu-Lapu

The COVID-19 patients in the city were earlier described as a 70-year-old married man, who has a pre-existing illness and whose son is a doctor while the other patient was a 74-year-old married man, whose wife is a doctor.

The LLCHO has also collected swab samples of the two workers of the first patient, who escaped and traveled somewhere when they knew that their employer was a COVID-19 positive patient.

Roco said that they were considered as patients under investigation (PUIs) after one of them has manifested a symptom of the virus.

“Na-contain ra sab nato to sila a day after ato. Na-trace ra to nato sila ug naa na sila sa Eversley. Kay that time man gud pagkuha nila, nag-fever ang usa then gi-under PUI na lang siya,” she added.

(We also contained them a day after they left the doctor’s house. We traced them and they are now at Eversley because at that time when we caught up with them, one of them was nursing a fever so we had to place them under the category of PUI.)

At present, Roco revealed that they have 11 PUIs in the city and 446 persons under monitoring (PUMs)./dbs