The mass rapid diagnostic testing has started today for the 2,800 populace in a lowland interior village in Malita, Davao Occidental where the first reported confirmed COVID-19 case in the province, came from.
Davao Occidental Governor Claude Bautista immediately ordered a lockdown in Barangay Bolila in the municipality of Malita, after the 65-year old female resident, who tested positive of COVID-19, died on Monday (May 4) at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC).
Bautista also promptly directed for the swab testing of the immediate family members and the patient’s watcher who are now undergoing 14-day quarantine.
As of this writing, the governor’s executive assistant, Marivic Hubac confirmed that the house-to-house rapid diagnostic testing of the village residents commenced today as instructed by Bautista.
During Tuesday’s (May 5) interview over Davao City Disaster Radio, the governor assured that the province has enough supplies for the rapid testing and swab tests as part of the measures that the provincial government has prepared while enforcing a general community quarantine in the entire province for the period May 1-15, 2020.
Bautista was saddened by the death of the first confirmed COVID-19 case, after having done all precautionary measures and having zero incident for about two and a half months.
“For about two and a half months, we have adhered to the national and regional policies. But this could not really be avoided,” the governor lamented as he reported the news.
He said that the patient thought she could not be affected of the deadly disease because she had no travel history, but he added that the patient had comorbidities of hypertension and heart condition, and that she suffered from stroke.
Bautista bared that the patient was already in a bad state of health condition and was half paralyzed before she was admitted to SPMC on April 30, 2020.
He said that based on their assessment, the patient could have acquired the disease during the four-day confinement at SPMC, adding that “the patient was frail and vulnerable at age 65.”
According to the Department of Health’s (DOH-XI) profiles of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Davao Region as of 5:00pm of May 5, the history of exposure of the said patient is still under investigation and the onset of symptoms was on March 16, 2020.
Bautista assured that the patient’s family will definitely receive assistance from the provincial LGU.
“We will shoulder the expenses for the COVID-19 patients. In fact, we already prepared our recovery program,” he stated.
He also assured that apart from the rapid testing and swab tests, the LGU has also sufficient supplies such as face masks, complete sets of PPEs, thermal guns, and other needed supplies.
Meantime, the Provincial Health Office of Davao Occidental stated on its official Facebook post that the office is doing contact tracing and mass testing to determine the source of infection.
“We ask the public to observe personal hygiene practices like hand washing, wearing of face mask, maintaining physical distancing and staying at home to prevent further spread of the virus.” (PIA-XI/Carina L. Cayon)
