By Froilan Gallardo, Special Correspondent .
PLACING a small Badjao community has proven to be a challenge to front line medical workers and the local government here.
Cagayan de Oro Mayor Oscar Moreno said Bajao are known to be highly mobile people and speak their own dialect.
“The Badjao loves their freedom and being quarantine might not suit their lifestyle,” Moreno said.
“There would also be a language barrier between them and our barangay health workers,” he said.
The Cagayan de Oro City Health Office had placed under quarantine for 14 days a small community of 30 families or 146 Badjao who have settled in Sitio San Juan Tabako in Barangay Puntod here.
This after a 21-year-old Badjao woman was rushed to the Northern Mindanao Medical Center after she complained of vomiting and severe dehydration on Tuesday.
After undergoing an RT-PCR test, City Epidemiologist Dr. Joselito Retuya said the Badjao woman was found positive for the Covid-19.
Retuya said they traced where the Badjao woman came from and found she arrived from Iligan City last weekend.
“A trisikad driver brought her to the hospital on Tuesday,” Retuya said.
Moreno said the woman was part of a bigger Badjao group who traditionally comes to Cagayan de Oro every fiesta on Aug. 28.
He said the language barrier would be difficult to successfully implement a focused containment in Sitio San Juan Tabako.
“The Badjao people should be made to understand that the quarantine is for their own protection,” Moreno said.
“This would be the challenge for us, barangay officials and the medical front liners, “ he said.
