5 Pinoy MERS patients in UAE ‘doing well and recovering’ – DFA

The five Filipinos reported to have contracted the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus in the United Arab Emirates are now “doing well and recovering,” the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Monday.

According to the DFA, the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi dispatched a team to Al Ain, some 1.5 hours from Abu Dhabi, last April 12 to determine the condition of the Filipinos who were reported to have contracted MERS.

“The Embassy team was also able to confirm that the five Filipinos are doing well and recovering,” the DFA said in a statement. “The next-of-kin of the Filipino fatality has already been notified and is being assisted.”

The government, meanwhile, will provide death benefits to the family of the Filipino who died from the MERS, according to Carmelita Dimzon, head of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

“The family of the one who died will receive death benefits,” she said Monday. The family of an OWWA member receives a burial benefit of P20,000.

This the second reported MERS-related fatality involving a Filipino in the Middle East. A Filipina nurse died from the infection in August 2013.

Dimzon also said the body of the Filipino fatality will no longer be repatriated as the family had already decided to bury it in UAE.

She also said that the five OFWs, who are also OWWA members, are already in isolation with their needs being attended to hospital staff. The victims were paramedics at the Al Ain Rescue and Ambulance Section.

MERS is a novel virus often referred to as the Middle East’s own version of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Symptoms of MERS include fever, cough, shortness of breath, and even diarrhea.

Human cases of MERS have also been reported in other Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Oman.

Meanwhile, the DFA has advised Filipinos in the Middle East to take necessary precautions against MERS. “Those who experience any of the disease’s symptoms are urged to immediately seek medical attention,” it said. — with Michaela del Callar/KBK, GMA News

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