OFW from UK is 1st Omicron patient in Dagupan City

People queue for their first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 outside the Region 1 Medical Center in Dagupan City. The city has recorded its first case of the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 through a returning overseas Filipino worker from the U.K. | PHOTO: Ray B. Zambrano

DAGUPAN CITY–A 48-year-old returning overseas Filipino worker (OFW) was the first case of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus in this city, officials said Monday, Jan. 17.

The City Information Office said the OFW arrived in the country on Dec. 21 last year from the United Kingdom and was quarantined at a hotel in Angeles City.

The woman underwent a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test on Dec. 25, 2021, the fifth day of her quarantine.

Her test result the following day confirmed that she tested positive for COVID-19.

The OFW, who had no symptoms, was transferred to another facility in Pampanga province and was discharged after 10 days as a recovered patient.

Dr. Ophelia Rivera, the focal person of the city’s COVID-19 Task Force, said the patient continued to undergo quarantine at home until Jan. 9. The genome sequencing result from the UP Philippine Genome Center released on Jan.15 showed that the patient tested positive for the Omicron variant.

Rivera said the patient’s specimen was collected on Dec. 25, but it took three weeks to process it.

She said contact tracing had been carried out even if no active case had been traced to the OFW.

The patient’s family members were scheduled to take RT-PCR tests, Rivera said.

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