Negros Oriental Assistant Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liland Estacion. (PNA photo by Judy Flores Partlow)
DUMAGUETE CITY – An overseas Filipino worker (OFW) from Qatar who returned to Negros Oriental is the latest confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) case in the province.
Assistant Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liland Estacion, who also chairs the health committee of the province’s Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), disclosed in a press briefing here Wednesday afternoon that the repatriated OFW is a 28-year-old-female from Bayawan City.
Estacion said the woman, who works as a domestic helper in Qatar, arrived in the Philippines last Aug. 29, was subjected to swab testing in Manila and the result came out negative.
So she was allowed to depart for Negros Oriental, arriving here on Sept. 3 but when she was subjected to rapid diagnostic testing, she was reactive of IgG/IgM (immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M) antibodies. She was subjected once more to another reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test here, which then tested positive for coronavirus.
The woman is now in an isolation facility of the Negros Oriental Provincial Health even though she is from Bayawan City as she is an OFW and per arrangements with the OWWA, returning OFWs are to be initially under the care of the province before they are turned over to their respective local government unit, she added.
The Provincial Health Office (PHO) here received last night 219 swab test results from Cebu City, with 217 of them turning out negative and two positive, including that of the OFW and of a patient from Sibulan who tested positive again on his second swab.
As of Sept. 9, the province’s total count has reached 146, four deaths and 126 recoveries. Presently, there are16 active cases, PHO records show. (PNA)
