No novel Corona virus (nCoV) was seen from the specimen of the ten-year-old girl tourist from El Nido that is currently under isolation at Ospital ng Palawan (ONP).
Dr. Audie Csar Cipriano, chief, Medical Professional Staff of ONP, said that initial result of the patient’s specimen arrived today from Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) and has initially clears the patient from 2019 nCov. This was after two days when the specimen delivered to RITM last Sunday.
Cipriano said that based on initial findings, the cause of the kid’s respiratory infection is only “bacterial” in nature that can be cured though antibiotics.
But the Medical Professional Staff chief clarifies that there are still confirmatory test that should be done before the said Person Under Investigation (PUI) will be “officially” declared “clear” from the Wuhan novel Corona virus and be permitted to leave the isolation room.
As what the DOH-CHD MIMAROPA Health Education and Promotion Office had said earlier, the specimen may or may not be sent to Australia, depending on the result of series of tests. When the specimen test conducted by RITM personnel identifies the cause of the ailment, there is no need to send the material to Australia but if it turns-out to be negative after the conduct of all tests and the virus is still unidentified, that is the time that the specimen should be sent to Australia for laboratory test.
In the case of the Colombian patient, the confirmatory test will be handled by RITM for they have their own confirmatory test kit and there is no need to send the specimen to said country. The specimen used may either form the patient’s sputum, throat swab, or any other respiratory tract specimens.
Tomorrow will be the much-awaited day for the family as the second test result will arrive that would be the basis of ONP to discharge the kid from the hospital.
“Hintayin po natin ‘yung result ng second specimen para mas accurate and reliable po [ang info],” DOH-CHD MIMAROPA Health Education and Promotion Officer Romalyn Racho said thru a text message.
The foreign patient and her parents were first put under isolation in a local health unit in the Municipality of El Nido, and after the health personnel assessed their condition, they eventually brought to ONP in early morning of Jan. 25 and stayed there as of press time.
When inside the isolation room, the Health Department said that the patient’s fever had gone, except the respiratory illness. The ONP likewise said that the PUI’s parents can be treated as outpatients, but they stayed inside the isolated room to attend their daughter.
Meanwhile, by this initial development, the province of Palawan and the City of Puerto Princesa are still free from the danger of the said highly contagious disease from Wuhan, Hubei province in China, the ground zero that is now already locked-down by their government.