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Philippines watching developments on Thailand's potential 2019-nCoV cure

Patricia Lourdes Viray - Philstar.com
Philippines watching developments on Thailand's potential 2019-nCoV cure
In this Feb. 3, 2020 photo, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III holds a press conference on the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Acute Respiratory Disease.
The STAR / Edd Gumban

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines will be waiting for further research on the effectivity of a cocktail of anti-virals that supposedly cured a Chinese woman infected with the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Thailand.

A 71-year-old patient tested negative for the deadly virus 48 hours after Thai doctors gave her a mixture of medicines used to treat flu and HIV.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the treatment in Thailand lacks scientific basis and noted that the "drug cocktail" was only applied to mild novel coronavirus cases.

"We need further advisories because it will be difficult if something bad happens due to the medicine, it will be our liability, the situation will be more complicated," Duque told radio dzMM in Filipino.

Duque added that the DOH will be willing to use the so-called drug cocktail if proven effective.

"It will be better if we wait. If there is proof that the cocktail is really effective, why will we refrain from using it?" the Heatlth chief added.

According to Thailand's health ministry, the doctors combined anti-flu drug drug oseltamivir with lopinavir and ritonavir, anti-virals used to treat HIV to the patient.

Thailand has 19 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, the second highest number of cases outside of China, next to Japan with 20.

WATCH: 'Everything is well': Duterte assures nation on novel coronavirus risk

First death outside China

The Philippines confirmed the first recorded death from the virus outside China over the weekend.

The patient was a 44-year-old Chinese man, a companion of the 38-year old woman, who was the first confirmed carrier of the virus in the Philippines.

The man passed away on February 1, days after being admitted for fever, cough and sore throat. According to the DOH, the man was in stale condition in his last few days before his sickness worsened within 24 hours.

The DOH is monitoring 80 patients suspected of having the virus, 67 of which are confined and isolated in various hospitals in the country while 10 have benn discharged but under strict monitoring.

2019-NCOV-ACURE RESPIRATORY DISEASE

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

FRANCISCO DUQUE III

NOVEL CORONAVIRUS

As It Happens
LATEST UPDATE: October 1, 2023 - 2:35pm

Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.

October 1, 2023 - 2:35pm

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.

Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.

The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP

August 18, 2023 - 4:25pm

The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown. 

The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday. 

So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP

August 11, 2023 - 7:07pm

The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".

The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.

In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP

June 24, 2023 - 11:50am

The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.

In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.

Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP 

June 15, 2023 - 5:42pm

Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.

The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".

But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.

In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.

He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".

Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP

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