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Filipinos repatriated from virus epicenter show no symptoms of nCoV

Gaea Katreena Cabico - Philstar.com
Filipinos repatriated from virus epicenter show no symptoms of nCoV
This handout photo from Department of Foreign Affairs shows Filipino workers repatriated from central Chinese city of Wuhan inside a plane.
Department of Foreign Affairs, Handout

MANILA, Philippines — All Filipinos repatriated from the ground zero of the deadly novel coronavirus were “healthy,” the Department of Health said Monday, following safety concerns on the facility used as quarantine zone.

DOH Undersecretary Eric Domingo said none of the 32 Filipinos flown home from China’s Hubei province exhibited symptoms of 2019-nCoV since their arrival in the Philippines Sunday morning.

“‘Yung lahat ng pumunta sa airport wala silang tinurn away na kahit isang Filipino dahil lahat ng dumating ay malusog, walang lagnat, Domingo said in an interview on radio dzMM Monday. 

(No Filipino was turned away in [Wuhan] airport because all repatriates were healthy, they have no fever.)

He added: “During the flight na tatlong oras, chini-check sila walang na-develop na kahit anong symptoms hanggang makababa sila dito sa Clark.”

(They were checked during the three-hour flight. No one developed any symptoms until they arrived at Clark International Airport.)

The repatriates were transferred to the Athlete’s Village in New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac for a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

“In the past 24 hours, wala pa pong nire-report sa atin na nagkaroon ng sakit,” Domingo said.

The Health official said medical personnel will be deployed to allay the fears of communities surrounding New Clark City.

Capas Mayor Reynaldo Catacutan earlier lamented that the DOH did not involve the local government in its decision to use New Clark City as a quarantine zone for evacuees.

DOH and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, which has jurisdiction over NCC, stressed that necessary measures were put in place to ensure the adjacent communities of NCC are kept safe.

The death toll from the novel coronavirus reached 900 in mainland China, overtaking global fatalities in the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic.

The Philippines confirmed three cases, including one death—the first fatality outside mainland China. 

2019 NCOV

NOVEL CORONAVIRUS

As It Happens
LATEST UPDATE: October 1, 2023 - 2:35pm

Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.

October 1, 2023 - 2:35pm

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.

Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.

The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP

August 18, 2023 - 4:25pm

The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown. 

The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday. 

So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP

August 11, 2023 - 7:07pm

The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".

The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.

In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP

June 24, 2023 - 11:50am

The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.

In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.

Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP 

June 15, 2023 - 5:42pm

Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.

The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".

But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.

In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.

He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".

Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP

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