PUERTO PRINCESA CITY –– A person under investigation (PUI) in Palawan died while waiting for his test result for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Wednesday morning.

Richard Ligad, chief of the City Information Office (CIO), announced the death of the 37-year-old Filipino male in an aired live video on Facebook.

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There was no record of the PUI in the official tracker of the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (RESU) of the Department of Health (DOH) in Mimaropa issued at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

Noel Orosco, head of the DOH-RESU, said the PUI was not part of the official tracker as they received the data late and was already beyond the “cut-off time of reporting.”

Doctor Melecio Dy, director of the government hospital, where the PUI was isolated, confirmed that the patient was admitted on March 16.

He was flagged as a PUI based on his travel history to Manila. His samples were taken at 11 a.m. on March 17.

Dy said the patient was initially reported as a PUI because of his travel history. But he also had another pre-existing serious health infection.

“He died because of severe respiratory distress, and his body was treated as a highly infectious disease,” Dy said.

Palawan remained free from COVID-19 as of 1 p.m. Wednesday, according to the DOH-RESU.

Edited by LZB

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