The Mati Incident Management Team has started contact tracing all patients of the Davao Oriental Provincial Medical Center who were treated from May 25-26.
This after one of the hospital’s health worker who hails from Davao City has tested positive for Covid-19 last week.
IMT commander Dr. Ben Hur Catbagan Jr. said that they are just waiting for the complete list of close contacts of the said personnel during his 2-day duty at the DOPMC last week.
He said their focus right now are the Mati patients who were direct contacts of the said health personnel especially those who were discharged on May 25 and 26. This is to contain the possible spread of Covid-19 in the community.
As of Monday, June 1, the Mati IMT have already identified 10 DOPMC patients who had close contact with the said infected health worker.
Catbagan said the patients and their close contacts will be placed on a 14-day quarantine to be strictly monitored by BHERTs and will be scheduled for RT-PCR testing.
Catbagan said the close contacts (1st generation) of the said personnel including the 2nd generation contacts who are close contacts of the 1st generation must be tested to ensure the safety of the community.
In his directive to the IMT Monday, Dr. Catbagan urged everyone’s cooperation and contribution to stop the possible spread of infection in the city that has enjoyed zero infection incidence for two months now.
“Thru the leadership of Mayor Michelle Rabat and the cooperation and contribution of everybody, we have managed to control and contain the spread of COVID -19 in our City as of this time. With established systems in contact tracing and contact isolation and the public complying with the minimum health standards, we believe we can now start reviving our economy,” Catbagan said.
“However, we are still at war with COVID, right now we have a priority 1 incident. We need your cooperation in tracing all the patients discharged at DOPMC last May 25 and 26, place them in strict home quarantine with their families and schedule them for RT PCR testing (swabbing) within this week. They may have been exposed to an asymptomatic health worker at DOPMC who tested positive last May 30. DOPMC has yet to furnish us the official list, however we have started our surveillance and tracing using an unofficial partial list provided by DOPMC thru RESU,” Catbagan added.
The Mati IMT commander said that “we need to provide prompt services to these patients who may have coexisting medical conditions have them tested, quarantined to stop the chain of transmission, to be able to contain and control the possible spread of COVID”.
Catbagan also urged the Mati IMT to be cautious so as not to create panic among the populace.
“Let’s do this in a way that we don’t cause panic. We have the systems in place, let’s do this. God is with us,” Catbagan said.
Rumor have been circulating around social media since Saturday about the infected health worker, but the Provincial Inter-Agency Task Force did not make any statement to address the issue even during their live press conference Sunday afternoon.
The health personnel who tested positive for Covid-19 is said to be from Davao City and reported for duty at the DOPMC last May 25. He worked for two straight days and had made contact with several other health personnel and patients from May 25-26.
The said personnel reportedly took a swab test while still in Davao on May 8 and his test yielded negative on May 14. On May 27, the health personnel again took swab test and the May 30 result turned positive. He is said to be asymptomatic.
The said health worker is now isolated at an isolation facility in Davao City and is said to be in stable condition. He again took swab test and the latest result would come out anytime soon.
Last Friday, the province announced 12 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection in the towns of Banaybanay and San Isidro. Eight are returning OFWs while four have travel history to Maguindanao. (CIO MATI)