ZAMBOANGA CITY -- The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said 29 occupants at the agency’s home for the elderly were found positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
DSWD-Region 9 Director Fatima Caminan said Friday that all, except for one, of the 29 found positive for Covid-19 are senior citizens housed at the Home for the Elderly in Barangay Talon-Talon here. The other one is a house parent, who attends to the elderly.
Caminan said that rapid tests were conducted on all the 47 occupants of the shelter since some of the elderly were monitored with fever since Monday.
Caminan said that the elderly who turned out negative for Covid-19 were transferred to the facility of the Reception and Study Center for Children (RSCC).
, which was recently transferred to the DSWD property in Mampang, an adjacent barangay of Talon-Talon, remains vacant.
She said the Home for the Elderly will serve as the isolation facility for those found positive of Covid-19.
“It is much better if they will be quarantined in the same center instead of taking them to the isolation facility,” she said, adding that those afflicted with the virus are asymptomatic.
Nurses and social workers, she said, have been tasked to attend to the needs of both negative and those positive with Covid-19.
She said that the elderly occupants were infected with the virus through community transmission as the house parent goes home on a weekly basis. (PNA)
