After over three months of being deemed COVID (coronavirus disease) 19-free, Bohol on Wednesday recorded its second case of the dreaded disease breaking a long period of having zero active infections.
Governor Arthur Yap, in a statement, said that Department of Health 7 director Dr. Jaime Bernadas confirmed on Wednesday morning that one of the two overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), who earlier tested positive for COVID-19 while being quarantined in Bohol, again yielded a positive result in a confirmatory test.
The other OFW tested negative.
According to Yap, the two balikbayans were asymptomatic but both remained in a government-supervised quarantine.
“Sa pagka-karon, base sa atong protocol, tungod kay nagpabilin nga asymptomatic (walay gibati nga simtomas) ang pasyente, ang usa nga nagpositibo sa COVID-19, magpabilin nga i-isolate siya sa iyang kwarto sa atong quarantine facility,” Yap said.
The two OFWs had earlier tested positive in RT-PCR (real-time polymerase chain reaction) tests but the results were controversial prompting authorities to conduct confirmatory testing. Both were later considered as “false-positive” cases by Bernadas while the results of the second tests were awaited.
Dr. Yul Lopez, the Capitol’s spokesperson on COVID-19-related matters, said that the test results on the second testing of the 63 other OFWs who arrived on the same day as the coronavirus-positive balilkbayan have yet to be released.
He however said that the 63 OFWs had earlier tested negative in their first RT-PCR tests, unlike the two others who previously yielded positive results and had to undergo confirmatory tests.
“Malagmit negative to sila [63 OFWs],” Lopez said.
According to Lopez, the 63 OFWs who have already been in quarantine for 15 days as of Wednesday would already be allowed to go home once their tests yield negative results.
Lopez meanwhile assured that there is still no local transmission of COVID-19 in the province as the coronavirus-positive OFW was likely to have contracted the disease before arriving in the province on April 27.
There are 116 repatriated OFWs who are being quarantined in separate facilities in the province. Some 65 of them arrived on April 27, while the others were ferried to the province on May 9.
Bernadas’ confirmation of the positive result raised the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the province to two.
Bohol’s first COVID-19 case, the country’s third case, was recorded in late January through a 60-year-old Chinese woman who traveled to Bohol.
She was confined at a hospital in Tagbilaran City for a week and was discharged on January 30. She immediately left for China and has recovered from the disease. (with R. Tutas)