Lawyer Julius Caesar Entise, head of the Mandaue City Contact Tracing team said the patient is asymptomatic and under isolation. | CDN Digital photo Mary Rose Sagarino
MANDAUE CITY, Philippines – Another Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) here who was already vaccinated against the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) tested positive for the virus.
The female OFW was vaccinated completely using China’s Sinopharm vaccine in the UAE.
She received the first dose on January 14, 2021, and the second dose on February 6, 2021, before going home.
She arrived in Mandaue City via a direct flight from the UAE to the Mactan Cebu International Airport on February 11.
She was tested using the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) last February 16 and it was negative. However, when the OFW had another test for her return trip to UAE last March 3, the result, which came out on March 4, had a positive result.
Lawyer Julius Caesar Entise, head of the city’s Contact Tracing team, said the patient is asymptomatic and is undergoing home quarantine with her family.
Entise added during that their investigation, the patient has told them that she had not felt any side effects after being vaccinated unlike some of her co-employees who felt being feverish and the injection sites were swollen, among others.
The patient’s nine family members will be tested using the RT-PCR test on March 9 to determine whether they are also infected by the virus.
Entise said nobody in the family manifested the symptoms of COVID-19.
“This time around the OFW claimed that she just stayed in their house together with her family because of the relatively short period of vacation that she was given, she attended no gatherings, that’s why are very interested in this,” said Entise.
This is the second OFW case in Mandaue. The first one was a male OFW who was also inoculated using the Sinopharm vaccine in the UAE and tested positive for COVID-19 last February 9.
Entise said just like the first case, they will be submitting the patient’s blood samples to the Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (RESU-7) to analyze the patient’s antibody titer.
Entise who is a former nurse said people who already got vaccinated will still be infected by the virus, although the patient will not get a severe infection.
Entise is encouraging residents, especially those who already got vaccinated to still follow the minimum health standards like wearing of face mask, washing hands, observing physical distancing, among others. /rcg