DAGUPAN CITY – Two overseas Filipino workers(OFWs) who returned here on July 1 are the city’s latest coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients.
One of the migrant workers is a 28-year-old woman from Malued village who worked on a cruise ship, while the second infected OFW is a 31-year-old construction worker from the Middle East who resides in Tebeng village, said Dr. Ophelia Rivera, the city’s focal person on COVID-19.
The two tested positive at the Region 1 Medical Center (R1MC) on Friday (July 3), and are now classified as the 28th and 29th patients since March. Rivera said 23 of them have recovered, while one died.
The two are not manifesting symptoms of the coronavirus disease and are confined at the R1MC.
Rivera said the cruise ship worker arrived in the country on June 27 after a two-month quarantine at her cruise ship where she served as a hotel assistant. She stayed at the Crimson Hotel in Manila to await her initial results, which turned out to be negative as of July 1.
The woman returned here in a bus rented for OFWs by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration.
The construction worker arrived in the country on June 28 from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, and stayed at the Eurotel Hotel in Mandaluyong City while waiting for his test result.
He also tested negative of the virus so he boarded another OWWA-rented bus to Dagupan.
Both migrant workers arrived in Urdaneta City and were brought to a quarantine facility where they were again swabbed on July 3.
Rivera said the city health office is coordinating with the Department of Health for the contact tracing of the other passengers in the OWWA buses.