Two people who returned to their home countries of Australia and Taiwan after traveling to the Philippines have tested positive for COVID-19, both countries’ health ministries confirmed yesterday.
It’s unclear how the two foreign travelers would have contracted the disease in the Philippines, as the country currently has no known infections, but if they did, it would be the Philippines’ first recorded local transmissions of the virus, and the first new cases in weeks.
Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control said that their 44th case is a 30-year-old male who returned on March 3 with his friends. The man, a resident of northern Taiwan, consulted with medical professionals after experiencing dry throat and fatigue on the day he arrived. He was reported as a suspected case before laboratory results confirmed the diagnosis.
“Related investigation suggested it is an imported case linked to the Philippines,” the body said in its statement, without elaborating on how they arrived at that conclusion.
New South Wales’ Ministry of Health, meanwhile, said that a 60-year-old woman who is one of six new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Sydney. “Her travel details are being obtained and will be disclosed if she posed a risk to any other passengers on her flight,” .
搁别补诲:听Third Filipino tests positive of COVID-19 in Hong Kong
As of this morning, the Department of Health (DOH) in the Philippines is in over a dozen regions across the country. However, so far, the country has only seen three confirmed cases — all Chinese tourists.
However, with scores of Filipinos overseas having contracted the virus, most of them aboard the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship, public skepticism about the DOH’s ability to detect the virus is mounting.
DOH Assistant Secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire聽told radio show DZMM this morning that , but once they confirm that the foreigners traveled to the Philippines, they’ll be tracing people who had close contact with them.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia鈥檚 temporary travel ban on Filipinos, which was imposed earlier this week, only covers tourists and travelers for the Muslim pilgrimage of Umrah, and that Filipino workers to enter the Middle Eastern kingdom.
