COTABATO CITY –– A pregnant nurse from Abu Dhabi has tested positive for coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the first COVID-19 case in Kidapawan City and the second in Cotabato province, local and health officials said.
Kidapawan City Mayor Joseph Evangelista said the 29-year old nurse traveled from Abu Dhabi to Singapore and Manila and had reached Kidapawan City via Davao City.
“The patient (PH3671) is now confined in an isolation center in the city,” Evangelista told a news conference.
The woman is the second COVID-19 patient in Cotabato province after a 45-year old man from Midsayap town earlier tested positive for the disease. Patient 3272 (PH3272) belonged to a cluster of cases from a cockfighting derby in Matina Gallera last month.
Arjohn Gangoso, Department of Health 12 health education and promotion officer, said the nurse was just one of the three new COVID-19 positive cases bringing to 13 the total number of COVID-19 positive cases in the region.
The other two cases included Patient 3669 (PH3669), a 59-year old man from General Santos City, who had a travel history to Davao City, and Patient 3670 (PH3670), a 49-year-old woman from Cotabato City, who also traveled to Davao City. Both patients have been reported to be in stable condition in a hospital.
Cotabato Governor Nancy Catamco said PH3272 is in stable condition and is now in an isolation facility in the province.
“He is very cooperative with our health workers,” Catamco said of the 45-year-old male cockfighting aficionado. “The patient is asymptomatic and, on Monday afternoon, swab samples were taken from him,” she added.
While the Department of Health guidelines allow asymptomatic patients to be on home quarantine, the patient’s family decided to put him in an isolation facility in Kidapawan City to appease the public. The patient’s family members also placed themselves on quarantine.
His 14-day home quarantine completed, PH3272 now awaits the results of his second swab tests.
Catamco said all cockfighting aficionados in the province, who went to the Matina Galleria derby, had been accounted for and had shown no symptom of the disease in the past three weeks.
Earlier, an 82-year-old man suspected of COVID-19 infection died in Tacurong City before the test results, which confirmed him positive of the disease, arrived.
The man, later tagged as Patient 600, died on March 14 in Tacurong City. His body was embalmed and family members held a seven-day wake before they buried him on March 21.
On March 25, his test results confirming him positive of COVID-19 arrived, raising the alarm among health authorities for possible spread of the infection.