The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) confirmed on Monday that there is still no case of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus in the Philippines.
Director Celia Carlos of RITM made the assurance after a 44-year-old Chinese man died because of the 2019-nCoV ARD on Saturday.
The man was the companion of the 38-year-old woman from Wuhan, China who tested positive for the virus.
“There is no community transmission. We are still in the containment stage. That is why there is a huge amount of effort being done to identify people who might transmit the disease through contact tracing, imposing quarantine if necessary, so we don’t go from containment to mitigation. We are hopeful that we will not reach that point,” she said.
The RITM head advised those who had a travel history from China, Hong Kong and Macau to go on self quarantine and isolate themselves for 14 days.
“We do not want one family member who recently arrived here to infect the rest of the family because if that happens, that person can infect two or more,” she added.
Carlos added five laboratories will be put up to test patients of suspected novel coronavirus cases.
