DOH confirms 4 new A(H1N1) cases; public told to stay calm

The number of Influenza A(H1N1) cases in the Philippines has climbed to six after the Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday confirmed that four more people contracted the dreaded virus.

Despite this, DOH Secretary Francisco Duque said there is no reason for the public to panic, noting that the government is still at the top of the situation.

“There is no need to panic and there is no need to wear facial masks because there is no outbreak in the country. We expect the confirmed cases to rise due to out effective monitoring measures. We have prepared well for this," he said in a press briefing Wednesday afternoon.

Duque said two of the new cases were a 55-year-old man and a 26-year-old woman, both Filipinos, who had contact with two Taiwanese who tested positive for the disease when they returned to their country after attending a wedding in Zambales province. The other two were a 13-year-old boy who came from Hong Kong, a one-year-old girl who traveled from US.

“There are new confirmed cases of A(H1N1) as of May 27, 2009. These are laboratory confirmed cases," Duque said. “The two children have histories of travel to affected countries Hong Kong and the US. Both adults are contacts of the confirmed case from Taiwan," he added.

The DOH official said the 13-year-old boy had already recovered while the three others are being observed in undisclosed health facilities in the country. The announcement came hours after Health Undersecretary Mario Villaverde said that the DOH was already coordinating with Japanese authorities on reports that a Filipino-Japanese boy who returned to Japan contracted the disease while in the Philippines.

Villaverde said the DOH was still uncertain on how the Filipino-Japanese boy contracted the disease and in what part of the country he stayed in.

Earlier, the DOH confirmed two cases involving a 10-year-old girl who traveled from the US and Canada and a 50-year-old woman who came from Chicago. The two have already recovered from the illness but remain under quarantine. Villaverde advised the public not to panic because the first two A(H1N1) patients only manifested “mild" symptoms.

GMANews.Tv

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Tags: DOH, Influenza, Mario Villaverde, philippines