MANILA, Philippines (Update 3, 5:47 p.m.) — The Philippines on Tuesday afternoon reported more cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), bringing the country’s total count above the 500-level.
The Department of Health confirmed there are now 552 cases of the disease in the country after detecting 90 new infections.
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The death toll rose to 35, the DOH added.
The country’s 34th fatality was a 71-year-old Filipino male from Quezon City who had no travel and exposure history.
Identified as Patient 215, the man passed away on March 24 due to severe pneumonia caused by COVID-19, hypertensive cardiovascular disease and cardiac dysrhythmia.
A 76-year-old Filipino male from Cavite also died due to COVID-19, community-acquired pneumonia high risk, acute respiratory failure, heart failure, ST-elevation myocardial infarction.
He expired on March 14 but was only confirmed to have caught the virus on March 20.
Meanwhile, two more patients have recovered, raising the total to 20.
A 21-year-old Filipino female from Davao de Oro with travel history to United Kingdom and Qatar became the country’s 19th recovery. She was discharged on March 23 after testing negative once.
A 76-year-old Filipino female from Quezon City who had exposure to known COVID-19 cases also survived the illness. The senior citizen was discharged on March 22 after testing negative once.
COVID-19 may be fatal for the elderly, people who are immunocompromised and those with underlying medical condition, the World Health Organization said.
Detections expected to rise each day
Health authorities said the number of confirmed cases in the country is expected to balloon in the coming days as more people suspected of contracting the disease get tested following the arrival of 100,000 test kits from donor countries China, South Korea and Brunei.
In virus-hit countries like South Korea and Singapore, widespread testing is crucial in their fight against the pandemic as it allows authorities to isolate and treat infected people.
But even with new supplies, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III earlier told Philstar.com that mass testing — where even asymptomatic individuals exposed to infected patients are tested — cannot be done in the Philippines because the country’s ill-equipped healthcare system lacks the capabilities to do so.
More than a week into the month-long Luzon lockdown, President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday asked Congress to grant him special powers to stem the contagion rate and mitigate the economic damage from the virus. If the additional powers were enacted into law, it would set the stage for one of the most far-reaching measures in the world to arrest the spread of the virus.
WHO warned that the new coronavirus pandemic is accelerating after it took just days for the virus to infect another 100,000 cases.
The number of deaths caused by the virus soared past 16,000, with more than 382,644 people infected worldwide.