MANILA: The Philippines yesterday asked more than 400 passengers who shared an airline flight with a man infected with the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) virus to check in with the health department immediately.
It was a precautionary measure to ensure none of them were infected by the man who has been quarantined along with his family, a health official said.
Passengers on the Etihad Airways flight on April 15 were told to call the department’s emergency numbers listed in the media even while the department tries to track them down, said Lyndon Lee Suy, spokesman for the department’s emergency service. “We want to ensure that none of them would have gotten the virus. We don’t want to miss a single case,” he said.
The 418 passengers will be asked if they have fever or flu-like symptoms that might be signs of MERS. The spokesman could not say how many of the passengers had been contacted. A Filipino who arrived on the flight from the UAE tested positive, the department said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Malaysia quarantined 64 people in a southern village after a resident become the country’s first person to die of MERS. A 54-year-old man died in hospital in the southern state of Johor on Sunday. He had developed fever, cough and breathing difficulties after returning from a pilgrimage to Makkah on March 29. Health authorities screened some 100 people from the village, Kampung Bintang, to check for more infections, The Star newspaper said. Sixty-four will be quarantined for a week after showing possible symptoms. AFP
