OWWA joins search for Etihad passengers
MANILA, Philippines—The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) has joined the search for 260-plus passengers of Etihad Airways Flight No. EYO 424 who are being tracked down by the government to undergo testing for the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus, or MERS-CoV.
OWWA Administrator Carmelita Dimzon said the agency was “part of the continuing government efforts” to trace and contact the passengers of EYO 424.
“So far, we have found in the OWWA membership files the names and other personal details of several (overseas Filipino workers) who were among the passengers on that flight,” she told the Inquirer.
“The list is growing,” Dimzon said, noting that OWWA personnel did some tracing even during the Holy Week and closely coordinated with the DOH in locating the OFWs.
She clarified, however, that her agency’s task was “limited to tracing the OFW passengers who happen to be OWWA members.”
“We let DOH personnel take care of the medical protocols since we’re not experts in that department,” she said.
The MERS-CoV is a respiratory virus that is considered a deadlier but less transmissible cousin of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which spread in China 12 years ago.
Its symptoms include fever, cough, shortness of breath and diarrhea.
The Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, arrived in Manila on April 15 with a total of 415 passengers, including a Filipino nurse who earlier tested positive for MERS-CoV in that Middle Eastern country. He subsequently tested negative in confirmatory tests here and never exhibited symptoms of the disease.
The DOH has, so far, traced 153 passengers, of whom 72 have been tested. Forty of them were negative of the virus.
The World Health Organization has recorded 242 confirmed cases of MERS-CoV, including 93 deaths, since it was first discovered some time in March 2012 in Saudi Arabia.
At least eight OFWs have been found positive for the virus. Two of them— one in Saudi Arabia and the other in the UAE — died on Aug. 29 and April 10, respectively.
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