MANILA, Philippines — A personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Chaplain Service has contracted coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an official from General Hospital in Camp Crame, Quezon City confirmed on Wednesday.
Police Major Duds Santos, COVID-19 point person for the PNP General Hospital, said the patient is now confined at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City.
“’Yung isang yung nagpositive as reported by Department of Health (DOH), nasa St. Luke’s ‘yun. Nakalabas na siya ng ICU (intensive care unit) yesterday,” Santos said in a phone interview with reporters.
(A personnel who tested positive as reported by DOH, is now at St. Luke’s Hospital. He left the ICU yesterday.)
Santos declined to identify the age and rank of the infected PNP Chaplain Service personnel for security reasons.
At least eight close contacts of the personnel took their 14-day quarantine from March 8 to March 22, Santos said.
He added that the close contacts were treated as persons under monitoring because they were asymptomatic.
To date, the Philippine health department has confirmed 552 cases of the respiratory disease. Of the 552, the disease killed 35 people while 20 people have recovered from it.
The World Health Organization has declared COVID-19 as a pandemic.
The disease, which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, can be a high risk for older adults and those with existing health conditions.