COTABATO CITY – A 30-year-old woman who had just returned home from work overseas tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and is the first case in Isulan town of Sultan Kudarat, local officials said.
The woman, whose patient number has yet to be issued by the Department of Health (DOH), is now confined in the town’s isolation facility, Isulan Mayor Maritess Pallasigue said.
Pallasigue also ordered a lockdown in a purok of Barangay D’Lotilla where the family of the returned overseas contract worker lives.
Health personnel have started contact tracing the persons who may have had close contact with the patient to inform them of the possible risk of infection.
The patient from Isulan is the 57th COVID-19 case in Soccsksargen, the region made up of South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, and General Santos City.
In neighboring Tacurong City, the local government announced that three people have tested positive for COVID-19.
One of them is a 43-year-old female locally stranded individual (LSI) who arrived in the province on June 18, and was tagged as the 53rd case in the region.
City Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (Cesu) head Marlow Anthony Buenacosa said the other two COVID-19 patients are a 37-year-old and a 38-year-old returning OFWs (ROFs) who both arrived in the city on June 15.
Buenacosa said all three patients are now in stable condition and are already in isolation since their arrival.
He also assured the public that precautionary measures and health protocols had been strictly observed in handling the patients.
In Sarangani province, a 44-year-old woman who arrived from Manila on June 15, turned out to be the region’s 56th patient. She is now in stable condition.
Mayor Angelo ‘Roncal’ Montilla urged the people of Tacurong to be serious in complying with the Modified General Community Quarantine guidelines now being imposed in the city. “Let us not lower our guard,” he said. “We should not be too confident. I continue to appeal to you for your cooperation and compliance with our policies and protocols,” Montilla said.
To date, Tacurong City has four confirmed cases of COVID-19, with one person tagged as PH600, who died of the disease.
South Cotabato has 16 cases of COVID-19, nine of which finally recovered; while Cotabato City has 15 cases, 13 of them have recovered.