DOH: 10 patients await COVID-19 test results while at home in Bicol

GUINOBATAN, Albay –– Ten patients in the Bicol region are waiting for the results of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) test administered on them while at home, according to the Department of Health (DOH).

Noemi Bron, DOH Bicol’s health education and promotion officer, said the patients are monitored by the Barangay Health Emergency Response Team.

“PUIs, whose signs have been treated, and have recovered but have not completed the 14-day quarantine, are discharged by referral hospitals,” Bron told the Inquirer.

The DOH Management Guidelines say that patients may not wait for the results because repeat testing is not a requirement before they are allowed to go home.

Bron said that before being discharged, the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit are informed and the patients are “fetched by the concerned local government unit.”

Six of the patients waiting at home are in Albay, two are in Masbate, and one each in Camarines Sur and Catanduanes.

As of Friday, the DOH has not recorded a positive case of COVID-19 in Bicol and the testing facility has yet to be put in place.

The results of COVID-19 testing still take three to five days to reach Bicol from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa City.

LZB