RITM scales down operations

MANILA, Philippines — The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM)’s scaled-down operations will last until Friday as the number of employees who tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rose to 43.

RITM director Celia Carlos said yesterday operations of the institute’s laboratories were scaled down to facilitate the decontamination of all RITM buildings and the checkup and testing of all its personnel.

The RITM hospital’s operations remain in full swing, she added.

The index COVID patient in RITM is an encoder who contracted the virus from his community.

Through an internal contact tracing activity, 40 high-risk individuals have been identified and were the first to receive necessary interventions. 

As of Tuesday, 790 of the RITM entire workforce were swabbed and are awaiting their COVID-19 test results.

The RITM is the country’s referral center for infectious diseases and the primary testing center for the coronavirus.

75 COVID cases at NCMH

Meanwhile, the Department of Health yesterday reported that a total of 75 confirmed COVID cases have been documented at the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH).

Sixty-two of the cases are NCMH employees while 13 are patients, DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.

“Five of the cases have recovered, four of them are employees while one is a patient. There is no death,” she said.

The index case at NCMH is a nursing assistant who acquired the infection from the community and tested positive during the last week of March. She was assigned to Pavilion 28, where the outbreak started.

There are 2,200 employees and 3,200 patients at the NCMH.