First COVID-19 case in Davao region recovering — DRMC hospital chief

DAVAO CITY — The first coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) patient in Davao region and second case in Mindanao has been improving, according to the top medical official at the Davao Regional Medical Center (DRMC) in Tagum City where the female patient has been confined.

Dr. Bryan Dalid, DRMC chief of hospital, said in an online media briefing here that Patient 130, who was admitted to the hospital on March 9 for COVID-19 symptoms, had lost her cough and fever and appeared to be recovering. She was confirmed positive for the COVID-19 virus on Sunday.

Dalid said they had taken another oropharyngeal swab tests from the patient to be sent to the Regional Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) laboratory. If her test results would turn out negative for COVID-19, she would be tested again. Once two tests would consistently prove negative, the patient would be discharged, he said.

Dr. Annabelle Yumang, regional director of the Department of Health (DOH), said they were already trying to trace the persons whom the patient had been in contact with since she arrived here on February 29 until the day she entered the hospital, which was a good 10 days.

Yumang said they had contacted the woman’s family and some of her close friends who had shown no symptoms of the highly infectious respiratory disease, so far.

Patient 130, who reportedly came from Compostela Valley province (also soon to be named Davao de Oro), arrived in the country on February 29 from the United Kingdom, transiting through Doha, Qatar and Manila before arriving in Davao City.