By El Amigo

MANILA — An overseas Filipino worker from Tacloban City who recently went home from his work in Wuhan, China is now under “close watch” by the Department of Health as the 36-year-old OFW is suspect to have contracted the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

According to DOH Undersecretary Eric Domingo the suspected carrier of the disease works in Wuhan City arrived in Tacloban City last January 17, 2020.

Wuhan is the epicenter of the 2019-nCov outbreak.

The DOH withheld the name of the suspected carrier who is now being investigated by the DOH and is considered as the second “suspected case” of the 2019-nCoV case in the Philippines, after the 5-year-old Chinese boy reported in Cebu.

Accordingly, the man is manifesting fever and cough upon arrival but at present, he is in stable condition at a hospital and placed in an isolation room.

Laboratory tests are now being conducted on him.

His family and those who came in contact with him are now on “home quarantine” and being monitored closely by the DOH and health authorities in Tacloban, Domingo said.

The five-year-old Chinese boy in Cebu is now categorized as a “probable case” for 2019-nCoV after he tested positive for “non-specific pancoronavirus assay.”

This means that the boy is infected with a certain type of coronavirus that has seven different strains including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

When tested by the DOH-run Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, the boy turned out negative of SARS-CoV or MERS-CoV.

The result was then submitted to the Victorian Infectious Disease Reference Laboratory in Melbourne, Australia for confirmatory tests “to identify the specific coronavirus strain” but the latter said the result of which will only be available Tuesday, 28 January 2020.

Since the outbreak of 2019-nCoV in Wuhan last month, there have been 22 individuals in the Philippines who have sought consultation for manifesting symptoms of the disease after traveling to China. (IAmigo/Currentph.com)