Airport, quarantine officials monitoring passengers from Middle East for MERS-CoV

Airport and quarantine officials have intensified their monitoring of passengers especially from the Middle East, in the wake of the first confirmed case of the potentially deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the Philippies.

The Ninoy Aquino International Airport and Bureau Of Quarantine are using a thermal scanner to check the body temperature of incoming passengers, GMA News stringer Ariel Fernandez reported Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the Department of Health reported its first confirmed MERS-CoV case – a Filipina nurse, 32, who arrived from Saudi Arabia last Feb. 1.

Her medical condition was confined at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) on Tuesday, Feb. 10.

For its part, the Bureau of Quarantine is collecting yellow forms from passengers. It is also collating contact information such as phone numbers and address so that they can be located if a fellow passenger tests positive. — Joel Locsin/LBG, GMA News

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