Vaccinated in UAE, positive in Cebu; an OFW’s dilemma

FILE PHOTO: This undated transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2, also known as novel coronavirus, the virus that causes COVID-19, isolated from a patient in the U.S. NIAID-RML/Handout via REUTERS.

MANDAUE CITY, Philippines – An Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) here who already got vaccinated against COVID-19 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before he returned home in Mandaue last January 5, 2021, tested positive for the virus last February 9.

Lawyer Julius Caesar Entise, head of the Mandaue City Contact Tracing team, said the OFW received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine last December 12, 2020, and had his second shot last January 2, 2021.

The OFW was supposed to go back to the UAE that’s why he was tested for the virus using the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) as one of the requirements.

“He was surprised that he tested positive, that was the time he told us it could not be possible because he was already vaccinated that’s why we check, and true enough there was a document indicating that he was already vaccinated completely,” said Entise.

“That’s something that really is a point of concern to us because this person was already vaccinated and he tested positive nonetheless,” he added.

Entise added five out of seven members of his family including a two-year-old baby also tested positive for the virus.

The OFW is asymptomatic but his other family members who also got infected are experiencing moderate symptoms of the virus such as cough among others.

Entise said what happened to the OFW is very much possible.

“There is no 100 percent thing about vaccine,” he said.

The infected family members are now at the Norkis Park Isolation Unit in barangay Looc, here. /rcg