MANILA, Philippines?The number of House of Representatives employees found positive for the Influenza A(H1N1) virus rose on Tuesday to three, a day after a female House staff member was buried, according to the House Medical and Dental Service.

The 49-year-old woman was the country?s first fatality related to the swine flu virus.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Malacañang was open to postponing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?s State of the Nation Address (Sona) next month if the flu virus problem in the House worsened.

?If it becomes serious, why not?? Ermita said at a media briefing in Quezon City. The President delivers her Sona in the House.

South Cotabato Rep. Arthur Pingoy, chair of the House committee on health, said the number of confirmed flu cases in the chamber could still increase when results of tests done on other employees come in.

Because of the infections, office work in the House has been suspended since noon Tuesday.

President?s self-quarantine

Arroyo has agreed to go on a self-quarantine and practice social distancing as soon as she returns this weekend following a two-week trip to Japan and Brazil.

With the number of swine flu cases ballooning to 604, Ermita said the self-quarantine would be Ms Arroyo?s way of ?setting an example.?

?If the President is submitting herself to thermal scanning and self-quarantine, why can?t the others?? he said.

Ermita said Ms Arroyo and her party would decide when they came back on whether to quarantine themselves for 5 or 10 days.

130 new cases

An additional 130 people, including 14 foreigners, were confirmed to have been infected with the virus, raising the total to 604 yesterday.

Many of the new cases have already recovered, and as of yesterday 464 or 77 percent have already fully recovered from relatively mild flu symptoms without taking antiviral drugs.

Jinggoy?s two children

Among them were two children of Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada.

Estrada, who arrived Wednesday from a trip to the Middle East and Europe, said his children were already ?up and about? but were undergoing a 10-day quarantine that ends on Friday.

Estrada did not identify his children but his wife, Precy, told dzMM radio that it was their 19-year-old daughter Janela and 15-year-old son Jolo who got sick.

Estrada said his daughter apparently ?acquired? the ailment at her school, De La Salle University on Taft Avenue in Manila, which was the first school in the country to report A(H1N1) cases.

The senator said his son got the virus from his sister as the former got sick three days after she did.

The infection of the third House employee was confirmed Tuesday afternoon, according to Dr. Salvador Richard Dizon, director of the House?s Medical and Dental Service.

Dizon said the third infected employee was a male and in his late 30s. The second infected employee, also male, was confirmed to have the virus on Tuesday morning, he said.

Though the Batasan complex is closed, House doctors were still in their offices yesterday, burning the phone lines to check who among the House employees have been in recent contact with their infected coworkers.

Dizon said the medical officials were concerned that some employees might go to malls since work had been canceled.

Call for sobriety

With hundreds of people wanting to be tested for the virus each day, authorities are looking for ways to limit the screening to only the very sick and those who are at risk of flu complications such as those with pre-existing illnesses, the pregnant and the very young and elderly.

The rest of the suspected cases should treat themselves at home with bed rest, plenty of fluids and supportive treatment.

?The safest way to avoid getting the flu is through thorough handwashing and covering the mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing,? Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said yesterday.

DOH spent P90M

The Department of Health (DOH) has spent P90 million in less than two months since it started its A(H1N1) monitoring, according to Duque. He said this covered supplies, maintenance and operating expenses, and public information campaign activities.

?It is not rational that everybody should be tested. It?s impossible now to examine everybody with complaints of cough and sore throat,? said Dr. Remigio Olveda, director of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).

?If I would get a mild flu infection, I would no longer have myself tested because I know it?s just an ordinary virus. I can get well without the antiviral (medicine),? he said.

Swamped

As a laboratory facility recognized by the World Health Organization, the RITM is the only authorized facility to conduct confirmatory results for the novel flu strain.

Olveda said the RITM was lately swamped with throat swab specimens sent from all over the country. And lately, it has seen long queues of people asking to be tested.

Despite working round the clock, the staff is still facing a backlog of 300 to 500 tests, according to Olveda.

In the beginning, samples to be tested came in trickles of 10, then 20 then up to 50 a day. This shot up to 200 to 300 a day.

But in the last three days, after the DOH reported the first swine flu-related fatality, Olveda said RITM was getting 400 to 500 specimens a day, more than its maximum testing capacity of 250 specimens a day.

The RITM used to release results the next day after receiving specimens. It is now having a lag of three to five days. ?By the time they get the results, they?re already well,? he said.

Overseas Filipinos

More overseas Filipinos have also contracted the virus, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In Kuala Lumpur, a Filipino was one of five new cases. The Philippine consul general reported that the first positive case in Macau was a Filipino.

In Hong Kong, a Filipino tourist was added to the four cases of Filipinos with the flu virus. Two Filipinos were among its 14 confirmed cases in Qatar.