Health

EL PASO, Texas -- As fears continue to grow around the world, health officials in the Borderland are continuing to monitor the coronavirus and say they expect to receive new test kits for it from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in the very near future.

“We have issued medical advisories to medical facilities and providers as well as members of the business community," said Ruth Castillo, the El Paso Department of Health's Emergency Preparedness Program Manager.

Her department creates and maintains emergency response plans. Castillo said DPH staff is continuously being trained and updated about the virus.

"This is a type of coronavirus that hasn’t been contracted to humans before, so literally you have the medical community learning how to treat this coronavirus on the fly,” said David Morgan, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Health.

Morgan said New Mexico health officials are monitoring several residents who have returned to the state from China. "None of them have shown any symptoms...to the level of being able to send samples over to the CDC in Atlanta," Morgan added.

However, soon health officials in El Paso and Albuquerque will be able to test for the virus.

There are about 120 labs across the country that can test viruses like the coronavirus and El Paso's city health department has one of them.

“The CDC has set strict guidelines on what types of samples are going to be allowed to be collected," said Darlene Taranjo, laboratory manager with the El Paso Department of Public Health.

A patients must have traveled Wuhan, China, been in contact with anyone from China, and show symptoms which include fever, cough and shortness of breath.

"Specifically in the kit, it's a three-part test and in order for the sample to be a presumptive positive, all three parts have to positive. At that point we would send it to the CDC for confirmation," Taranjo said. “Someone just off the street can’t come in and try to get tested they have to call to make sure they fall under these type of categories.”

El Paso's lab is expected to receive about a dozen kits. Officials told ABC-7 they're not sure when. However, Morgan said kits are expected to arrive in Albuquerque within the next week.

"Something for El Pasoans to remember is that we don't have any cases here in El Paso...We are continuously training our staff to make sure we're caring for the health of our community," Castillo said.