MANILA, Philippines?Filipinos may be overreacting to signs not related to the Influenza A(H1N1) virus, according to a health official.

Dr. Eric Tayag, the government?s chief epidemiologist, Wednesday cited the case of someone who walked into a government hospital, fearing he had acquired the virus.

With neither cough nor sore throat, he was asked by a skeptical doctor: ?So why are you here? You must be feeling something to be here.?

The person cleared his throat and inquired if that would qualify as a symptom.

Recalling the story at a press briefing in Malacañang, Tayag said ?throat clearing? was not a symptom of the flu.

He said more and more people had been crowding hospitals primarily out of fear.

Twenty-three new cases

Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said 23 more people tested positive for the flu virus, raising the country?s confirmed cases to 77.

In its report dated June 8, the World Health Organization (WHO) said there were 25,288 cases and 139 deaths from 73 countries.

Tayag said the flu virus was a mild one and could be treated at home.

Stay home

?There?s really no magic to it,? he told reporters, noting that the virus could be managed in households the same way seasonal flu was traditionally treated. ?It takes some commonsense procedures to take care of persons with flu,? he said.

Tayag said even health officials in the United States had stopped giving antivirals ?left and right? to A(H1N1) patients and instead resorted to home treatment.

He said patients should be treated with regular medicines for fever, take multivitamins and drink lots of fluids. He said only patients?not the entire household?should be made to wear masks.

Tayag said patients should also observe self-quarantine for about 10 days. He said a patient would become noninfectious only after seven days.

For precautionary measures, the public could make do with soap and water for hand washing. They may also keep a mouthwash and a bottle of alcohol, Tayag said.

?You don?t have to sterilize everything because we heard people have been buying all these expensive sprays,? he said.

Aggressive warnings

If the public had been exaggerating on the flu virus, it was because of aggressive warnings in the past from no less than the Department of Health (DoH) and WHO.

Tayag said health authorities had to be very aggressive and responsive at the start since not much was yet known about the virus.

?But as it evolves, we are finding out that it is causing only a very, very mild illness so we have to slow down on some of our responses,? he said.

In the past the government procedure was to automatically confine patients with confirmed cases of the virus. Now, the approach is more on home treatment, Tayag said.

Cluster of schools

The DoH reported that of the 23 new confirmed cases, 19 were Filipinos and four were foreigners. Eighteen of them were male and five were female.

Seven of the new confirmed cases have a history of travel to the United States and Japan, according to the DoH.

?The increase in cases was due to the relentless contact tracing done by the DoH in the five affected schools,? Duque said in a statement distributed at a press conference in Cebu Wednesday.

Duque said the new cases came from the cluster of schools, including De La Salle University (DLSU), Far Eastern University-East Asia College, De La Salle-College of St. Benilde, St. Andrews School in Parañaque and Ateneo de Manila University.

Mild cases

The health secretary said the 23 new cases were all mild ones, just like the previous ones.

?Even if it is mild, we should not be complacent. We have to make sure that all the measures as reflected in the national pandemic preparedness and action plan (would be implemented),? Duque said.

Stigma

Starting this week, the DoH stopped holding daily press briefings and limited itself to two briefings a week while issuing daily written updates in the interim.

Tayag said the DoH would no longer give individual details about the patients because school authorities had complained of the stigma felt by the students.

Health Undersecretary Mario Villaverde said the DoH had traced the ?index case? at DLSU. Through extensive contact tracing, health personnel were able to identify a couple of students who recently traveled abroad and manifested symptoms, Villaverde said.

Villaverde said the DoH also had an idea about the ?index case? in the other schools.

Villaverde also said there seemed to be no further spread of the virus at the Asian Development Bank which had a confirmed case in a female executive who manifested symptoms upon arrival from abroad. With reports from Iste Sesante Leopoldo and Jhunnex Napallacan, Inquirer Visayas