TACLOBAN CITY – The Department of Health in Eastern Visayas (DOH) is investigating a suspected case of the novel coronavirus (nCoV) involving a 30-year-old Filipino woman.
At a press conference on Monday (Feb. 3), Dr. Minerva Molon, DOH regional director, said the woman arrived in Leyte last Jan. 26 after traveling to Macau and Hong Kong, two Chinese territories with confirmed nCoV cases.
Molon said the woman experienced sore throat and cough when she arrived.
The woman is now confined at a hospital in this city.
The health department in the region learned about the woman when her friend contacted the DOH regional office.
Molon said the woman was picked up at her house on Feb. 1 and was brought to a hospital.
A swab sample was taken from the woman on that day and another sample was extracted from her on Monday.
Since her confinement, the woman appeared to be in “stable condition,” Molon said.
But she has to be confined and quarantined for 14 days, the maximum incubation period for nCoV, according to scientists who had studied the virus.
Molon said the woman is the first non-Chinese suspected to have the deadly virus in the region.
Earlier, a 36-year old American national was quarantined after he was suspected of nCoV infection. He was eventually discharged after testing negative for nCoV.
Edited by TSB