MOH Undertakes Mapping for COVID-19 Patient Four

This afternoon, the Director of Health Services provided more details to the fourth case of the corona virus. Mapping started soon after the results were known involving the San Ignacio area as well as in Belize City where the patient works.  Health personnel, who treated patient four at a private facility and then at the western regional hospital, are also included in the tracking and swabbing, but the results are not expected early. Here is Doctor Marvin Manzanero:

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“The mapping exercise started that time – some mapping had already been done because in part of the clinical history taking that you have with patients you will find out what it is that you are searching and after two in the morning we were still in discussions with the family members to try to identify any possible contacts or persons he may have been in contact with that could have gotten him infected. The preliminary report was developed from the san Ignacio area because he is from there. I mentioned earlier that he was seen at two private facilities before he arrived Tuesday evening at the western regional hospital. He was only seen by one doctor and had slight interaction with a nurse and in the other private facility he had interaction with two doctors. Those four health staff are now obviously in isolation. One of the doctors that saw him initially on Sunday had been off a shift as of Sunday so he has not been interacting with anybody else since then. All these doctors are asymptomatic and seemed to have had minimum contact in terms of potential exposure. But they have been swabbed. From that initial mapping in the Cayo area there are immediate contacts or close contacts in the same household and those have been swabbed. There are at least twenty swabs taken from the Cayo area and the people who he would have interacted with at the western regional hospital. Central Health Region is running a mapping exercise in Belize City because that is where his workplace is. That seems to be the link that we have for right now. It would be through his work place because the person doesn’t seem to have a strong positive history from contacts he has in the Cayo area. The patient doesn’t have a travel history for the month of February or March. His last travel history was end of January in Florida so it doesn’t seem to match his current case to having been exposed that way. So, it may have been somebody who travelled and got him to be positive for COVID-19. Our mapping exercise is not going to be able to tell us right now whether we have him as a community acquire transmission but it seems the link is going to be from his work place in Belize City.”