DUMAGUETE CITY—The Negros Oriental provincial health office on Wednesday (June 10) confirmed that two pneumonia patients in the city died at the weekend and were buried immediately.
The patients had been confined in the Negros Oriental provincial hospital.
Dr. Liland Estacion, assistant provincial health officer, said the two patients—a 24-year-old woman from the village of Mangnao and a 70-year-old woman from Tinago village—died due to “community-acquired pneumonia” on June 5 and 6.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, however, it was not clear if the patients died of COVID-19. Pneumonia is one of the worst effects of the disease.
One of the fatalities has been tested but results were still out when she died. The other fatality has not been tested.
Estacion said there was “no malice” intended in the immediate burial of the two patients on Saturday (June 6) evening as it was well within the 12-hour window prescribed for pneumonia patients.
Estacion said Negros Oriental may have its own COVID-19 testing laboratory “soon.”
The provincial government earlier announced that the provincial hospital’s application for license as a testing center is now on “stage two and moving forward.”
Representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO), Department of Health (DOH), and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) visited the hospital on Wednesday for initial assessment of its capacity to conduct coronavirus tests.