MANILA, Philippines — Department of Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar has tested positive for the coronavirus disease 2019.
Villar himself announced this in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
“I regret to announce that today, July 15, I received my test result and it is positive for COVID-19,” he said in his post.
Villar was recently named as the chief isolation czar of the government’s COVID-19 response. He will be in charge of overseeing the country’s quarantine facilities under this new role.
Prior to Villar’s positive result for the coronavirus test, several high-ranking government officials have also earlier tested positive for the virus but have eventually recovered.
Among them are Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri and Senators Aquilino Pimentel III and Sonny Angara, as well as Education Secretary Leonor Briones, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, and Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Felimon Santos Jr.