Balikbayan taken to RITM for possible A(H1N1) virus infection

MANILA, Philippines – An 80-year-old balikbayan woman was brought to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) shortly after she arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 yesterday afternoon from Los Angeles, California via Seoul, Korea.

Doctors and nurses from the Bureau of Quarantine at NAIA said they saw the elderly passenger coughing continuously while approaching the thermal scanner. She was brought to an isolation tent for further check-up and given a mask.

Quarantine doctor Neptali Labasan said the woman showed signs of “influenza-like illness” and had to be brought to the RITM for further check-up.

He said the move was just a precautionary measure to determine if she was infected with the A(H1N1) virus.

The passenger will undergo observation from five to seven days before she can be released.

Labasan said the woman’s family was notified of the confinement and consented to it.

Since the outbreak of the A(H1N1) virus, 11 passengers from Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 have been quarantined but subsequently released after they tested negative for the virus, Labasan said.

He added that there is no reason for people to panic since authorities are doing everything to prevent the spread of the virus in the country.

“All the results were negative, so the public has nothing to worry about,” Labasan said.

Meanwhile, five people – two of them children – were reported to the Department of Health (DOH) to be showing flu-like symptoms.

But four of them were immediately cleared of the A(H1N1) virus yesterday, according to DOH Undersecretary Mario Villaverde.

He said the patient who remained under observation was a 58-year-old Filipino male from The Netherlands. – With Sheila Crisostomo