DEPUTY Secretary for Health Care Dr. Gregory Jilini is appealing to parents and relatives of those discharged patients to come forward for their review tests.
Dr. Jilini revealed there’s a bit of problem on follow-up on those they have been discharged; “some we have able to contact them sometimes but there were times their phones have been switch-off.”
He said it’s important for the patients to get tested again because of the associated risks.
“We are doing this because we all know that this infection is new and there are a lot of unknowns and the risk of reactivation is still the possibility so we do not want to take any chance,” he said.
He recalled that the government’s aim was not to import the virus but now it’s here the government wants to contain it in the quarantine facilities.
“As we do not want it to spread out to the community so we have taken this quite seriously in order to go extra miles so that we can prevent any possibility of community transmission.
“Few we have not able to contact them. Fortunately today (yesterday) we have been able to test three of them and all three were negative, thus they have one more final test remain.
“We have expected to test two of them tomorrow, the two were in the province and we are liaising with our health team in the province that will easy for our health team there to swab them and just send their specimen here for testing.
“So I like to appeal to others that we cannot able to make contact with them to please contact us or respond to the calls of our officers,” he said.
He also warned the discharged patients that it is important to know that the country is still in a state of public emergency.
“So it is an offense if we are not following the instruction issued by the authorized officials.
“We are all doing this to protect the country and our people. We will continue to do this to make sure that we test all that we have discharged so that we can be make sure that there is no risk of community transmission of any possibility of the reactivation,” he said.
By FOLLET JOHN
Newsroom, Honiara
