The Department of Health reported on Monday, August 22, that a fourth monkeypox case has been detected in the country, but the DOH 6 could not confirm a report circulating that the person infected was from Iloilo.
The DOH central office said the fourth person hit with monkeypox in the country is a 25-year-old Filipino with no documented travel history to or from countries with confirmed cases of the disease.
The case had a positive result for monkeypox via real time polymerase chain reaction test on August 19 conducted by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, it said.
“The case is being cared for and is admitted in an isolation facility. Intensive case investigation and contact tracing is ongoing,” the DOH said.
About 14 close contacts of the fourth case have been identified, the DOH added.
The DOH said the four confirmed monkeypox cases in the country are not related to each other.
The DOH 6, which was bombarded with questions from the media on whether the fourth monkeypox case was from Iloilo, on Monday night said: “We have been waiting for the statement supposedly to be released by our central office earlier today. We were also expecting a media forum to address the concerns. However, we were informed that central office will be holding the media forum tomorrow instead”.
In the interest of public health, patient privacy, and compliance with the law, the DOH 6 also said data collection, analysis, and the dissemination of information from official disease surveillance and response systems can only be done by authorized personnel from the DOH and its local counterparts.
The unauthorized disclosure of private and confidential information pertaining to a patient’s medical condition or treatment is prohibited under Republic Act No. 11332, with corresponding penalties provided for by law, it added.
Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said “I’m hoping it (mokeypox) does not happen in Negros, we just have to be vigilant”.
The health protocols to be observed are the same as COVID-19, he said.
He said monkeypox in not contagious during its incubation period, it becomes infections when the rashes come out, he said.*