BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Benjamin Magalong said on Monday, Jan. 20, that the patient who was reported to have died of monkeypox here is not a resident of this city.
Magalong also said that the victim cannot be considered the first case here as he had not lived in this city for a long time.
The city chief executive said that the 32-year-old victim, although from Baguio, was already infected with a variant of the Mpox virus when he arrived from his place of origin.
“The deceased did not contract the disease here, but in his place of origin, he just happened to return home here, until his disease was detected, he was confined, but he also died,” Magalong said.
He said the victim is unrelated to the first recorded Mpox case here, a 28-year-old man, who has recovered from the disease.
“Having some difficulty getting more information from the source, because the source still has multiple contacts, but he doesn’t want to reveal, so we are slowly convincing him to reveal them so that we can trace his contact and get them treated,” Magalong said.
Magalong called on the public to maintain health sanitation practices similar to the pandemic such as maintaining personal hygiene and wearing face masks in crowded areas.