14 staff of Negros Occ PDRRMO’s emergency unit now under quarantine
BACOLOD CITY — At least 14 members of the Emergency Response Unit of the Negros Occidental Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (PDRRMO) were quarantined after one of their colleagues tested positive for the new coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.
The personnel of the Emergency Response Unit were exposed to an ambulance driver who contracted the contagious respiratory illness.
They will be subjected to tests to determine if they also acquired the virus.
The 47-year-old male ambulance driver was in charge of transporting COVID-19 positive overseas Filipino workers from their hotels to provincial quarantine facilities, said Zeaphard Gerhart Caelian, Provincial Disaster Management Program Division chief.
The driver is asymptomatic and has been quarantined at the EB Magalona Healing Center, while the 14 other members of the Emergency Response Team who came in close contact with him were quarantined at the Mambukal Resort in Murcia.
The family members of the driver will be swabbed to find out if they were also infected with the virus.
Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said the two-week suspension of the arrival of locally stranded individuals will provide the province some respite.
As of July 3, the Department of Health recorded 109 cases of COVID-19 in Negros Occidental.
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For more information on COVID-19, call the DOH Hotline: (02) 86517800 local 1149/1150.
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