Philippines prepared for MERS-CoV — Palace
MALACAÑANG said yesterday the government has made the necessary steps to prevent the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV).
“The Philippines is fully prepared to thwart and contain the Middle East Respiratory Coronavirus and government has put in place all the necessary preventive measures, including contact-tracing and other infectioncontrol protocols, to isolate those exhibiting symptoms of MERS-CoV,” Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma, Jr. said in a statement.
Mr. Coloma said the Health department has conducted last year a successful contacttracing and isolation after a Filipino hospital employee who had tested positive for MERSCoV in the Middle East had returned to the country.
“The patient was confined at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine and later tested negative. Similar cases reported in August 2014 and February 2015 were likewise successfully contained,” Mr. Coloma said.
He also cited Health Secretary Janette L. Garin’s assurance that the Philippines remains MERS-CoV free.
Health workers and hospital employees on the watch of the Health department have conducted monitoring along with its information campaign since the first quarter of 2014, when MERS-CoV was first reported in the Middle East, Mr. Coloma noted.
“As a member-state of the World Health Organization ( WHO), the Philippines abides by [the WHO’s] advice ‘to continue surveillance [on] acute respiratory infections and to review any unusual patterns,’” he said.
Mr. Coloma cited the WHO statement which noted, that given the lack of evidence of human-to-human transmission in South Korea, it “does not advise special procedures at points of entry, or travel, or trade restrictions” in that country.
In an interview on Sunday, the Palace spokesman said the Health department has sent a group of experts to the Middle East to assist the Foreign Affairs department in reaching and monitoring Filipinos working in hospitals and in giving assistance and medical attention.
Mr. Coloma also said Filipinos from South Korea are “advised to accurately accomplish quarantine forms that will facilitate contact tracing,” as well as to remain vigilant, take precautionary measures, obey local health regulations, and observe personal hygiene.
A total of 126 MERS-CoV cases, including 11 deaths, have been reported in the Republic of Korea, according to a WHO disease outbreak news on June 12.
The WHO defines MERS-CoV as a viral respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus that was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012.
“The virus does not seem to pass easily from person to person unless there is close contact, such as occurs when providing unprotected care to a patient,” WHO said. —