MANILA, Philippines — Early medical intervention for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients has led to more recoveries in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) claimed on Friday.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said doctors now have a “higher index of suspicion” for the disease and they begin to treat probable COVID-19 patients even though their test results have not come back yet.
“Kapag mas maaga ang ating intervention o hakbang, mas magiging epektibo ito laban sa COVID-19 (The earlier the intervention, the more effective it is against COVID-19),” she explained in a virtual press briefing.
The DOH is also strictly monitoring COVID-19 patients, even those who are under home quarantine.
“Nasusubaybayan na natin ang mga gumagaling mula sa mild o asymptomatic o walang sintomas na kaso ng mga COVID-19 sa loob ng kanilang mga tahanan,” Vergeire said.
The number of recoveries in the country have seen record-high increases during the week, allowing it to overtake the country’s death toll.
The highest spike in the number of recoveries was recorded on April 16, with 82 patients reported to have beaten the disease in one day.
So far, 487 COVID-19 patients were able to beat the disease, while 387 succumbed to it.
The health department also earlier explained that the actual number of recoveries could be higher than what is recorded as there are cases that were not reported to them.
Special Assistant to the Health Secretary Beverly Ho said that only those recorded by DOH as recoveries are those who underwent repeat testing.
She explained that recovered patients need not undergo repeat testing as they display clinical improvement and no longer show COVID-19 symptoms.
“Ang ating mga recoveries ay maaari pang tumaas dahil hindi pa po dito kasama ang mga pasyenteng clinically recovered or ‘yung mga pinayagan nang umuwi ng kanilang doktor at inabisuhang mag-self-quarantine,” Ho said in an earlier virtual press briefing.
(The number of recoveries could further increase in the coming days as this does not yet include the patients who were clinically recovered and were allowed to go home and undergo self-quarantine.)
She also pointed out that it takes at least 13 days to as much as 33 days for one individual to recover from COVID-19.
There are now 5,878 cases of COVID-positive individuals in the country, while there are now 387 deaths.
Globally, nearly 550,000 of 2.1 million COVID-19 patients were able to recover, while over 140,000 passed away.