2 of 8 sailors who disembarked in Iligan from Manila have coronavirus antibodies

ILIGAN CITY— Two of eight seafarers who disembarked at the port here on Wednesday, April 29, were found to have coronavirus antibodies after undergoing rapid tests in their respective hometowns.

One is in Wao, Lanao del Sur, and another in Kapatagan, Lanao del Norte.

Bangsamoro parliament member Zia Alonto-Adiong said the sailors from Wao town is now in a quarantine facility while the result of confirmatory reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test is being awaited.

The one in Kapatagan town is confined in an isolation facility run by the provincial government, said Lyndon Calica, Lanao del Norte’s community affairs officer.

The seafarer, whose last country of assignment is Italy, is being monitored by the Health Emergency Assistance and Response Team (HEART) of the provincial government, Calica added.

The eight overseas Filipino workers arrived from Manila aboard M/V St. Michael the Archangel of 2GO Shipping.

Of the eight who disembarked in Iligan, four are residents of Lanao del Norte, two in Lanao del Sur, and two in Iligan City.

The seafarers were fetched by health workers of their respective local governments and confined in isolation facilities.

But the two seafarers from Iligan were put on home quarantine as the city’s isolation facility at the Iligan City National High School is not yet operational pending perfection of an agreement with the Department of Education, said City Health Officer Cherlina Caṅaveral.

The eight sailors were part of the 305 seafarers stranded in Manila and brought back to their hometowns through the national government’s Balik-Probinsya program.

More than 200 of the 305 disembarked in Cebu, and 13 of them were later found positive for the virus based on an RT-PCR test.