6 days after suspected COVID-19 patient dies, his brother also passes away

Rescue vehicle of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council carries the body of a suspected COVID-19 patient from Amai Pakpak Medical Center on Saturday, March 28, to a Muslim cemetery in Marawi City. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

ILIGAN CITY — The brother of a suspected coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) patient who was buried here five days ago died at the Amai Pakpak Medical Center (APMC) in Marawi City on Saturday.

The man, also considered a patient under investigation (PUI), was admitted at the hospital two days after his brother was buried at a local government-owned quarry area here.

Dr. Alinader Minalang, chief of Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) in Lanao del Sur, said the patient died four days after he was admitted at APMC with his test results for COVID-19 still pending.

He was from Lanao del Sur area which recorded the first cases of COVID-19 in Mindanao and where suspected cases of local transmission could be happening.

His brother died at 2 p.m. last Sunday, March 22, only hours after arriving at the Adventist Medical Center here,  complaining of fever, cough and shortness of breath. He was buried at a quarry area in Barangay Bonbonon on Monday, March 23, by men in hazmat suits and secured by a convoy of fully-armed policemen.

Minalang said the two siblings had another sibling and a close relative who were admitted at APMC last Sunday afternoon.

The brothers who died were considered PUIs for showing severe flu-like symptoms and for recently traveling in an area with confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Their other sibling was tested COVID-19-positive in a hospital in Manila after coming home from overseas.

“The family went home when the lockdown in Manila was announced. They stayed in their house in Iligan where the symptoms developed,” Minalang said in a phone interview.

As of 7 p.m. of March 28, six PUIs have been admitted at APMC; two of them already tested positive of the virus, two were waiting for their test results, while the rest had just been admitted.

On March 17, a PUI from Lanao del Sur who went to an Islamic event in Malaysia died at APMC only hours before the test results arrived confirming him positive for the virus. He was tagged by DOH as Patient 201. He was an Islamic missionary who was among the 215 Muslim Filipinos who joined the Islamic event in a mosque in Selangor attended by 16,000 people and reported to have caused a spike of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia.