Manila: The labour offices attached to all Philippine embassies in the Middle East were ordered to undertake a daily monitoring of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), to prevent the spread of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus, a senior official said.
“Our 15 Philippine Overseas Labour Offices (POLOs) are required to submit (to the Philippine government) the complete names, addresses in the Philippines, and contact details of vacationing OFWs at least two weeks before they return to the Philippines,” said Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz.
Officials of POLOS must order OFWs undergo MERS-CoV testing two weeks before they return to the Philippines, ordered Baldoz.
There are reports that some Filipino nurses in Saudi Arabia have been exposed to the virus, said Baldoz, adding, “That’s the reason why we have to re-establish the Daily Monitoring System on MERS-CoV which the POLOs began last April, also with the help of Philippine and foreign-based recruiters.”
“Philippine government officials and the recruiters were likewise ordered to contact health authorities in the Middle East countries that are hosting OFWs,” said Baldoz, adding, “This will strengthen infection control protocols for Filipino healthcare workers there.”
There are 15 POLOS attached to Philippine Embassies in the Middle East. The Philippine government has also established 11 more POLOS in Asia, and ten others in Europe and in the United States.
Last April, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration began a massive information campaign to departing OFWs on Mers-CoV and how to evade being infected by it, said Baldoz, adding, “These measures will ensure that OFWs are protected from the potentially deadly virus.”
The Philippines remains free from Mers-CoV, said the health department.
A Filipina nurse eventually tested negative for the deadly virus, based on the results of the tests that she underwent at Southern Philippine Medical Centre in Davao City, southern Philippines. She was confined there after her arrival from Saudi Arabia because health authorities were informed that she had tested positive of MERS Cov earlier in Saudi Arabia.
Her friend, another Filipina nurse and family members based in northern suburban Bulacan had also tested negative of Mers-CoV, following their confinement at the Lung Centre in suburban Quezon City.
They subjected themselves to several tests because the nurse who was earlier suspected positive of MERS Cov had stayed with them in Bulacan before her flight to her hometown in the southern Philippines.
Last September 5, relatives buried in Bacolod, central Philippines the sealed coffin of Gemma Oplas who died from Mers-CoV infection in Saudi Arabia last May.
Her frozen remains arrived in Manila on September 3, and later flow to her hometown in Negros Occidental.
Oplas worked at the King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh since 2005. She had been working in Saudi Arabia since 2001.
She allegedly took care of a Filipina nurse who was infected by the deadly virus.
As of July 2014, there were 700 documented Mers-CoV cases in 20 countries, 250 of whom died. Infections were linked to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East.
