The Health Department He agreed on Monday to perform the coronavirus test on a 71-year-old patient who is being held in the intensive unit of the Mutual Auxiliary Hospital in San Juan, “with a classic picture” of this disease that keeps the entire world on alert.
This was confirmed to The new day The man’s doctor, Fernando Cabanillas, who said the patient began to develop fever, persistent cough, shortness of breath and diarrhea a week ago.
I agree with you Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the symptoms of coronavirus are fever, cough and shortness of breath.
The man, who has uncontrolled diabetes and lymphoma, has not traveled in recent months to any country with an outbreak of this virus and has not been in contact with a person diagnosed with the disease known as COVID-19.
“I had the classic picture, but we had to rule out the negative flu test. Then, he had a chest CT-Scan that showed that there was bilateral pneumonia with coronavirus characteristics. ”detailed.
Cabanillas reported that although he contacted Salud on multiple occasions to notify the case, the agency refused to carry out the test.
“They refused to do so because they said the patient did not have the criteria and because he had been with his daughter who had a cold”, Held.
He said the agency told him that they did not want to send evidence to the CDC for fear that they will be negative and the federal entity refuses to perform additional tests.
Before that, Cabanillas communicated this week with the federal entity, who indicated that the test had to be performed.
After the doctor reported the situation in several media outlets, Salud agreed this morning to take samples from the patient.
Cabanillas stressed that the government should stop taking into consideration whether a person has traveled to a country with high cases of coronavirus as one of the criteria to perform the test or not.
“He (the patient) has not traveled or had contact with anyone. Since that is not used as a criterion, the governor (Wanda Vázquez) seems to be out of date. He carried all the requirements from the moment the case was consulted. ”he stressed.
This would be the third test that is performed on a person on the island, after an Italian tourist who landed yesterday, Sunday, of the Costa Luminosa cruise ship in the port of San Juan was subjected to the test by showing a picture of possible coronavirus. Her husband, although she had no symptoms of the disease, was also subjected to the examination.
Meanwhile, Cabanillas said he is aware of at least four additional cases of people with symptoms of coronavirus, but have not been tested.
“Instead of refusing to do the tests, they should be reactive and test everyone who has criteria. If the doctor understands that the person may have coronavirus, that is enough to perform the test. There doesn’t have to be a travel or contact history, ”he said.
This medium contacted the Department of Health to get an answer, but it was not possible.
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Similarly, another doctor, who preferred not to be identified, said that when there are suspected cases of coronavirus in hospitals in the country, Health consistently refuses to test patients for meeting the necessary criteria.
“That is a limitation because if we do not do the test, we will not identify them,” he said.
He also requested that the agency desist from requesting travel history from a patient with symptoms of the disease. He indicated that the CDC has already eliminated that requirement from its protocols.
The doctor noted that the first cases reported in the city of Seattle, in the state of Washington, were from people who had not traveled, for example, to China, Iran, Italy or South Korea.
He agreed with Cabanillas that at least three to four more patients have shown symptoms related to coronaviruses in different hospitals on the island.
He also criticized the protocol established by Salud to report cases to an epidemiologist at the agency, because, according to him, it puts obstacles to the response.
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