Health authorities looking for 17 on same flight
MANILA, Philippines—Here’s good news involving the first Filipino found positive for the Influenza A(H1N1) virus.
The 10-year-old girl who had come from the United States with her parents is now on the way to recovery, the Department of Health announced Friday morning.
“The patient is recovering … She has no more fever. She only has a sore throat,” Health Undersecretary Mario Villaverde told reporters in a news conference.
Villaverde also said “the closest contact,” the mother of the so-called “index case,” had been tested for the virus, with negative results.
“That is the good news,” he said, adding: “Based on [indications], it looks like this is contained.”
But contact tracing on the 17 passengers who sat near the child in the plane back to the Philippines was initiated following the investigation conducted on Thursday when the child was found positive for the deadly virus, according to Bureau of Quarantine officer Mavic Vasquez.
There being no “community-level outbreak,” as Villaverde said in another briefing at the Palace, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gave the Department of Education the green light to proceed with the opening of classes scheduled early next month.
Education Secretary Jesli Lapus told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that public elementary and high schools would open as scheduled on June 1.
“The DoH (Department of Health) said there is no need to push the alarm button yet,” Lapus said.
Nevertheless, he said, the Department of Education (DepEd) would wait for further evaluations and recommendations from the DoH in the next few days.
No community level outbreak
Villaverde told health reporters that the infection contracted by the 10-year-old appeared to have been contained because of the limited contact she made with persons outside her immediate family.
The girl and her parents arrived from the United States on May 18.
“The day after they arrived, she slept the whole day. The next day, she started to have fever,” Villaverde said.
He said that at the hospital where the child was taken, it was the mother who attended to her.
“We’d like to emphasize that there’s no community level outbreak in the country,” Villaverde said at the briefing in Malacañang. “What we have right now is just one index case, which we have contained.”
Villaverde balked at the idea of making public the names of the girl and her family, and their general location.
“If after thorough evaluation there’s a need to inform a wider neighborhood than we currently know, then we will inform the public. But right now we’d want to avoid panic [as well as a situation where] the family will be stigmatized,” he said.
He also said the family had been very cooperative with authorities.
Contact tracing
Muntinlupa Rep. Rozzano Rufino Biazon said that with the first case of the A(H1N1) virus in the country, the government should trace those who were with the child on her return flight to the Philippines.
“Everyone on board should not only be monitored but also quarantined,” Biazon said.
Said quarantine officer Vasquez: “We have identified the airline concerned and obtained a manifest. [This is] for further surveillance.”
Those who may be considered possible contacts are those who were seated three seats in the front, side and back of the child, Vasquez said.
“Luckily, the index case was seated way in the back of the airplane,” she said.
Aside from the 17 passengers identified by the Bureau of Quarantine, 18 persons in the child’s household had been exposed to her, according to the World Health Organization.
Villaverde said members of the child’s household were now being subjected to “thorough assessment” under “home quarantine,” while the other passengers were being traced by local epidemiologists.
“Based on the history, there seems to be a very limited exposure to other people, except the ones in [the child’s] immediate household,” he said.
DepEd options
Lapus said that despite the go-signal to proceed with the school opening on June 1, the DepEd was continuing to study a number of options should the evaluation of the health department change in the next few days.
He said it would be difficult to suspend classes nationwide.
The options include suspending classes only in selected affected areas and delaying the start of classes in private schools, especially those with students who had spent their vacations abroad.
Most private schools are resuming classes a week later than public schools, Lapus pointed out.
At the House, Rep. Walden Bello of the party-list group Akbayan said lawmakers should use their pork barrel as seed money to beef up government funds to stock up on vaccines against the A(H1N1) virus.
Public awareness
Bello said protecting public health was more important than any pork barrel-funded project.
Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin called on the government to “strengthen public awareness” of the virus.
“The spread of the virus will be difficult to control if people do not cooperate through immediate reporting [of cases] and proper hygiene,” Garin added. With a report from Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.
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