MANILA, Philippines — Thirty-one of some 40 staff members at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), one of the country’s primary testing facilities for the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), have recovered after earlier testing positive for the very disease they test.
This was confirmed late Saturday by Department of Health spokesperson Rosette Vergeire, who also disclosed that the remaining nine personnel who are still positive but asymptomatic are staying at a dormitory in the facility as they await their secondary test results which are expected to come in early next week.
READ: 40 RITM staff infected, but asymptomatic
Speaking in an interview with CNN Philippines on Saturday evening, Vergeire said: “Thirty-one of them already had two negative examinations. Meaning they are already cleared.”
After the first 40 cases were confirmed, the institute scaled down its laboratory operations to make do with a skeletal staff.
This lasted until Friday, April 24.
The health undersecretary said that the 40 did not transmit the new pathogen during their testing procedures but rather contracted it from interaction with other cases.
READ: RITM scales down operations
“It was not within the laboratory that they got the infection, but mainly because of a [staffer] going home — getting it from the outside and bringing it in the RITM,” she said.
"One staff [member] who goes home everyday, and then when she got back to RITM, was able to expose and infect the others and this was through the common activities that they do, but not necessarily the laboratory processes," she added.
“They do not have symptoms and they have gone back to work already."
Earlier, the health department also disclosed that 766 health workers tested positive for the new pathogen, making up a worrying 13% of the country’s total number of confirmed cases.
Healthcare workers working the frontlines of the country’s fight against COVID-19—a sector that has been calling for more government support throughout the pandemic—are among those most at risk of possible transmission of it.
If you believe you have come into possible contact with infected patients, you may be directed to the proper office of the Department of Health for advice through the following lines: (632) 8651-7800 local 1149/1150 or (632) 165-364.
You may also opt to call the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine at (02) 8807-2631/ 8807-2632/ 8807-2637. The general public has also been encouraged to forward its concerns to the Health Department's dedicated 24/7 COVID-19 hotlines (02) 894-COVID and 1555 (free for all subscribers).