By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
The Philippines has declared the second patient who tested positive for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) free of the flu-like virus.
Dr. Lyndon Lee Suy, health department spokesperson, said the 36-year-old foreigner would be discharged from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine over the weekend, broadcaster ABS-CBN reported.
A 32-year-old female who had been in close contact with the businessman, who arrived in the archipelago from Dubai last month, will remain in hospital for the remainder of a 14-day quarantine period ending July 18.
Another 112 people who had close contact with the patient, including health care workers from a hospital where he had sought consultation earlier this month, also remain under home quarantine.
Suy said the department had tracked other people who been on the same flight as the foreigner.
"None of them manifested any signs and symptoms,” GMA News quoted him as saying. “We will not continue to look for them now because we're done with the 14-day period as far as the flight is concerned."
Dr. Julie Lyn Hall, the Philippines’ World Health Organization representative, was quoted as saying the patient had been “very cooperative.”
“When we say that he's now able to be discharged, that means that he has no longer got any virus,” she said. “That's what the tests show. There's no longer any virus. He's no longer infectious to anyone else."
The Organization will not be recommending any MERS-related restrictions on travel, trade or screening in the Philippines, added Hall, advising travelers to countries with reported MERS cases to remain vigilant.
In February, a Filipina nurse returning back from Saudi Arabia had tested positive for MERS, but recovered from the deadly virus – which has a fatality rate of more than 40 percent in Saudi Arabia where it was first discovered in 2012.
More than two dozen countries have reported cases of MERS, including South Korea, the U.S., Britain, France and Germany.
South Korea confirmed its first case on May 20, since when the death toll has reached 35.
