(Eagle News) – The Department of Health in Central Visayas said that the second test on the five-year old Chinese boy who first tested positive for the coronavirus showed he is now negative of the disease.
But despite the negative result of the second swab test done earlier on the boy, it is still important to wait for the confirmatory test result that the country had sent to Australia, said the DOH.
The second swab test was sent a few days ago to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).
“The boy from Wuhan City, Hubei province in China, no longer has fever, cough, and other signs and symptoms associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus,” said DOH Central Visayas medical officer Van Philip Baton in a media briefing on Thursday.
The DOH is still awaiting the results of the test done on another sample sent to the RITM.
The boy can only be discharged from the hospital, along with his mother, if this third sample yields negative for the coronavirus infection.
The DOH is also waiting for the confirmatory test results on a throat swab and blood sample from the boy which was sent to Australia.
So far, boy’s mother did not exhibit any symptoms of the infection.
Health officials also noted that the health workers who had been exposed to the boy did not also show signs of the coronavirus.
The illness has killed 17 people and infected at least 570 so far, mostly in Wuhan, China.
