PNoy orders tighter MERS-CoV surveillance after new case reported in PHL

President Benigno Aquino III on Monday directed the Department of Health (DOH) to step up its monitoring of possible Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases, after a foreigner who entered the country tested positive for the virus.

 

In a statement, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said Aquino had particularly ordered tighter “surveillance and quarantine measures” at all of the country’s ports of entry.

 

The DOH was also asked to “ensure the prompt reporting by all hospitals of patients who show symptoms of the disease for immediate isolation, treatment and contact tracing,” he added.

 

Earlier in the day, the DOH confirmed that a foreigner from the Middle East has been found positive with the MERS-Cov. This is the second reported case of the illness in the Philippines.

 

The patient is now confined at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa City.

 

Coloma nevertheless assured the public that the Philippines “is fully ready and capable of detecting, isolating and treating any reported case of MERS-CoV in the country.”

 

In February, a Filipina nurse who arrived from Saudi Arabia also tested positive for MERS-CoV. Later that same month, she was cleared of the virus. — Andreo Calonzo/RSJ, GMA News