Davao City Mayor Sara Z. Duterte (PNA file photo)
DAVAO CITY – Mayor Sara Z. Duterte confirmed Monday that 10 repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who arrived in this city this month have tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
Out of the 138 repatriated OFWs from Dhaka, Bangladesh who arrived on July 15, three tested positive of the virus, while seven out of the 350 OFWs from Dubai, United Arab Emirates who arrived on July 18 also got the infection.
“They are already transferred at the designated Temporary Treatment and Monitoring Facility (TTMF) for OFWs who will turn positive from repatriated flights,” Mayor Duterte said.
Of the 10, she said some are asymptomatic, with mild symptoms, and others needed medical care.
In their contact tracing, she will ask the Department of Health (DOH) on the protocols needed for those who will be traced.
Earlier, Mayor Sara clarified that only international repatriation flights are accepted here. She also allayed fears of a potential rise of Covid-19 cases with the acceptance of repatriates.
“There are international flights that would come in. They will be in a bubble wrap and will go directly to an isolation hotel. From there, they will undergo the needed Covid-19 processing, so there will be hotels designated for these groups,” she said.
In a previous interview, Davao City Tourism Office chief and Airport Monitoring head Generose Tecson said the OFWs underwent the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing with negative results 48 hours before their flight.
To ensure they are not Covid-19 carriers, these OFWs are quarantined and undergo a swab test anew on the seventh day.
“We do the quarantining to ensure that they are not carriers of the virus,” Tecson said. (PNA)
