THE City Health Office (CHO) deployed Friday a crack team of medical trackers to Sitio Pinikitan in Barangay Camaman-an where a man, who tested positive for Covid-19 days after he died lived, to look for influenza-like and acute respiratory illnesses and further contact tracing.
After covering 680 households, the trackers netted nine cases of influenza-like illnesses. These people were then checked by a doctor and given medications.
Mayor Oscar Moreno, however, wants more coverage to cover most, if not all households in the urban poor settlement with around 1,500 households.
“If we need to bring some more to our isolation centers, we will do it,” Moreno said.
Patient 6783 was referred to the Northern Mindanao Medical Center by the Polymedic General Hospital as a suspect Covid-19 case on April 15 (not April 17 as earlier reported).
“The virus is still there. The virus is still very dangerous,” Moreno once again warned as he called on Kagayanons to stay home. “Magpuyo sa balay, manghugas sa kamot.”
As of Saturday, 17 close contacts of Patient 6783 are now confined in one of the city's isolation centers. Twenty frontliners at the Polymedic General Hospital in Velez St, and a private clinic this city have also been on home quarantine. Some of the frontliners exposed to the patient finished their mandatory 14-day home quarantine on April 25, others on April 27, the rest on April 29.
City Health Office chief epidemiologist Dr. Joselito Retuya said they are in close coordination with the management of the private hospital where Patient 6783 was confined on April 13-15, so with the doctor and secretary of a clinic where patient sought consultation for leg pains on April 11.
None of the frontliners have gotten sick so far, he said.
“We have to be evidence-based and our response calibrated," said the mayor, shunning knee-jerk reactions like the calls for a lockdown.
This development, admittedly, has tested the city’s system of response to the Covid-19 but so far, “we have a good handle of the situation, but we need to intensify, do some more,” he said in Saturday’s press briefing.
As part of its response strategy, the city government has opened community isolation units. So far, it has over 400 bedrooms. These isolation centers have been operating since last month.
Over 500 community volunteers are on daily house-to-house surveillance around the city.
As of April 24, the volunteers composed of Barangay Health Workers, Barangay Nutrition Scholars, and Philhealth Community Development Volunteers have covered 48,391 households, where they found 2,087 cases of influenza-like and acute respiratory illnesses. Of this, 1,524 have been treated.
So far, Retuya said, they have not found clustering of cases, and treatment of cases has been good.
Meanwhile, two more suspected Covid-19 patients have been admitted to the NMMC as of April 24, bringing to 10 the patients in the hospital’s Covid-19 department. One of the patients is from Barangay Canitoan and the other from El Salvador City in Misamis Oriental. Both are senior citizens.
Moreno ordered the CHO to immediately conduct contact tracing on the Canitoan patient and coordinate with CHO of El Salvador for contact tracing.
Of the 10 patients now at the NMMC, three are Covid-19 positive -- two from Marawi City and one from Lanao del Norte. The two new patients are awaiting test results and the remaining five already tested negative but are still undergoing treatment for other ailments.
Moreno said even if the Covid-19 patients at the NMMC are not Cagayanons, the city has a “vicarious responsibility” for them.
The DOH said Covid-19 testing may be available in the city in two to three weeks. The TB DOTS laboratory at the DOH 10 compound in Carmen is being upgraded while waiting for the arrival of two units PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) machines. One is being procured by the DOH, the other by the city government.
“Upgrading work may take 10 days, then the training of the staff for a few days, then we can already do the tests here,” said Dr. Ian Gonzales of the DOH 10.
He added the Health Department does not recommend rapid testing because of its “low sensitivity and low specificity,” The DOH classifies those who have undergone rapid test as Covid-19 probable patients, and would have to undergo PCR test.
Among the highly urbanized cities in the country, Cagayan de Oro City, the 4th emerging metropolitan city after Cebu and Davao cities, has a relatively lower number of cases. Its first case was a 71-year-old male, dubbed patient 597 who had since recovered from the disease. The other is an 18-year old male who died while undergoing treatment for Lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes in Davao City. He has been there for treatment since July 2019. The 3rd case was Patient 6783.
In Northern Mindanao, Iligan City has four cases, Misamis Occidental two, Bukidnon one, and Camiguin one, for a total 11 including that of the city.
As the city's anti-Covid 19 machinery fires on all cylinders to stave off the spread of the virus that has thrown the planet into a pandemic, this major economic hub and key port city in Southern Philippines may yet wait a little longer before its people can regain their normal community lives and the economy is restarted. (BenCyrus Ellorin, contributor)
