St. Luke's BGC spots COVID-19 patient outside ER, limits exposure at hospital

St. Luke's Medical Center-Global City on Saturday confirmed that it has screened a patient, who tested positive for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but said the individual's exposure inside the hospital was limited.

The Taguig-based hospital's announcement came after Deloitte Philippines, also based in Bonifacio Global City, announced that one of its employees tested positive for COVID-19.

St. Luke’s Medical Center in BGC says exposure of COVID-19 patient in the hospital was limited. @gmanews pic.twitter.com/33F78qr9ZQ

— Ted Cordero (@Ted_Cordero) March 7, 2020

"St. Luke's Medical Center-Global City was able to identify, isolate, and screen a patient at the isolation room located outside the emergency wing who turned our positive for COVID-19," the hospital said.

"The Department of Health (DOH) facilitated the transfer and admission of this patient to the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM)," it added.

St. Luke's BGC said that the patient was identified right away and exposure was limited.

The patient did not enter the main hospital premises and main emergency room, it said.

The DOH earlier announced that the fourth and fifth cases of COVID-19 in the country are a 48-year-old Filipino male with a travel history from Japan and a 62-year-old Filipino male in San Juan City. The latter case had no travel history abroad but has frequently visited a Muslim prayer hall and has hypertension and diabetes.

Taguig City Mayor Lino Cayetano said the Deloitte Philippines employee who tested positive for COVID-19 is one of those  two cases. 

On Saturday, the DOH also confirmed on Saturday the country's sixth and so far latest COVID-19 case. 

The latest case is the wife of a patient previously confirmed to have tested positive for COVID-19 who had no recent travel history, Duque said.

The country's first three cases were all Chinese, one of whom succumbed to the disease.

As of Friday, the number of people infected with the new coronavirus has surpassed 100,000 across the world. — MDM, GMA News