(Eagle News) – At least 40 staff members of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) tested positive for COVID-19 forcing the facility to reduce operations to allow disinfection activities, and to investigate and do further tests on other employees.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that they are still determining the source of the infection, but that initial information that they have is that those who have been going home from the facility were among those infected.
In an interview with CNN Philippines, Vergeire said however that they have yet to receive the final information on the number of those actually working in the laboratory who had tested positive for the virus.
She said that RITM will just have to scale down operations as they deal with the reported infections.
All of the RITM’s employees will also undergo COVID-19 testing.
The RITM will also do contact tracing procedures to know the extent of exposure of those who had tested positive for COVID-19.
Vergeire reported in an earlier press briefing that at least 55,465 individuals have been tested in 17 accredited laboratories of the Department of Health (DOH) nationwide.
At the RITM, at least 34,350 of these tests were processed.
The DOH reported 6,459 confirmed cases all over the country as of 4 p.m., Monday, April 20, 2020. Of the number, 613 have recovered while 428 have died.