Government watches patients, international travelers for pneumonia

Health authorities are randomly sampling pneumonia patients at hospitals and the quarantine bureau is also monitoring international travelers to check on possible cases of the killer form of the disease, Health Undersecretary Antonio Lopez said yesterday in a radio interview.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health (DOH) announced that the first Filipino believed to have contracted the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome was discharged yesterday after being declared free from SARS.

For this, the World Health Organization (WHO) is set to remove the Philippines from a list of nations where the mysterious flu-like illness has been reported.

"I have already sent a message to the WHO headquarters in Geneva for the Philippines to be stricken off the list of affected countries," WHO country director Jean-Marc Olive said.

The DOH reported that the 43-year-old Filipino businessman, who had been isolated and placed in an undisclosed hospital since returning early this month from Vietnam, has not manifested any signs of the severe respiratory illness which define SARS.

"He is recovering well from his diarrhea which has been his most prominent symptom," the DOH said in a statement. "But aside from diarrhea, the man has not shown any other symptoms associated with the illness."

While in Vietnam, the Filipino was said to have met a Chinese businessman who was infected with the rare pneumonia strain and later died in a Hong Kong Hospital.

The DOH said that the incubation period is from four to six days but it has been 16 days since his last contact with a known SARS case.

While no other case has been detected so far in the country, news of the killer disease spread fast through the media.

The WHO warned that the deadly virus is now spreading in Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Canada and has already claimed the lives of at least nine people.

Reports coming from the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Singapore yesterday confirmed that five Filipino workers believed to be infected with the new pneumonia strain are now confined at the Tantock Seng Hospital.

Labor Undersecretary Manuel Imson said that the Filipinos, four of them nurses whose names were withheld, acquired the virus through contact with pneumonia patients but health authorities are still verifying whether the virus they acquired was indeed the deadly type now sweeping Asia.

"Our embassy and labor officials in Singapore are now in touch with the Filipino workers and checking their condition," Imson said in an interview.

In Hong Kong, no incidence of the disease was reported among the 153,000 Filipino workers in the territory.

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief Rosalinda Baldoz said they will wait for the recommendation of the WHO if there is a need to restrict deployment to affected countries.

"WHO would definitely make an assessment of each country and it would come out with countermeasures and recommendation which shall serve as basis for any change in policy," she said.

Precautionary measures

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said yesterday President Arroyo has ordered an intensified information campaign by government agencies led by the DOH to advise the public on ways to avoid such communicable diseases as the flu.

"There should be an information campaign about the flu epidemic, this should be clarified by the DOH to the people if only to allay fears of our countrymen," Bunye said.

In an effort to ease rising concerns, health authorities were setting up telephone "hot lines" so the public can report potential cases.

Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit urged the public to remain calm, avoid crowded places and call health authorities to find out areas or countries with risks of infection.

The DOH, he said, is working closely with international agencies and with our labor attaches abroad to prevent the spread of infection and to identify, isolate and treat possible cases.

Symptoms include coughing, high fever and shortness of breath, with headache, muscular stiffness, loss of appetite, confusion, rash and diarrhea also possible.

Highly susceptible to the disease would be those who lived with, cared for, or closely worked with a confirmed case and who also developed the known symptoms.

But those who did not travel recently to Hong Kong, China, Vietnam or Singapore, Taiwan, Canada and Thailand in the last two months — where there were reported breakouts of the highly contagious disease — need not worry and even those who did but had no contact with a known case, have no reason to worry, Dayrit said.

But he warned that "the problem is it (the disease) mimics a lot of other diseases."

"Exposure is always a concern, although the likelihood may actually be low ," he said.

At the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), the alert level was raised and a monitoring system at Terminals 1 and 2 was set up to check on the health of all arriving passengers from suspected countries.

"We are now working in a support logistics for the implementation of an airport protocol," Edgardo Manda, general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) told a press conference yesterday.

Manda ordered the deployment of about 200 to 300 personnel, including security personnel in the monitoring process even as he downplayed the outbreak of the deadly disease.

Planes arriving from suspected countries, he disclosed, will be sprayed and fumigated with Permethrin to disinfect the aircraft.

Manda said that those found positive or symptomatic will be quarantined, while doctors at the NAIA and the DOH will check on the health of other passengers on board the same plane before they are allowed to leave the airport.

He added that if a passenger is found positive of the SARS while on board a plane, there is a possibility that the plane will be ordered to go back to the point of destination, and will only be allowed to land in the Philippines to refuel.

"There is no case for panic. We’re just putting the system on alert," Dayrit assured the public. — Mayen Jaymalin, Jose Aravilla, Sandy Araneta, Marichu Villanueva, AFP