[UPDATE] PH officials confirm that a Filipina domestic helper was quarantined after employer’s parents tested positive for 2019-nCoV

The Philippine Consulate General has confirmed that a Filipina domestic helper was quarantined after her employer’s parents, who came to Hong Kong from Wuhan on Jan.22, tested positive for the novel coronavirus which has infected over 1,300 people in mainland China and at least 10 other countries.

She, however remains in good health and did not show any signs of being infected with 2019-nCov.

“We confirm that a Filipina domestic helper was quarantined. She is healthy and shows no sign of infection,” Consul Paul Saret said on Jan.26.

“However, she was contact traced to her employer’s two guests in Ma On Shan who tested positive. Given HK’s strict protocols and heightened alert, even healthy individuals maybe subjected to quarantine procedures if there is proof of contact,” he explained.

The employer’s parents, a 62-year-old woman and 63-year-old man went to Hong Kong via the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link on the evening of Jan.22, hours before Wuhan, a city in central China, was put on lockdown. They were admitted for isolation at the Prince of Wales Hospital after the woman developed fever and her husband had cough the following day.

They both tested positive for the 2019-nCoV, increasing the number of infected people in Hong Kong to five as of Jan.25.

CHP said they stayed with their daughter and her domestic helper at Lake  Silver in Ma On Shan.

Their daughter has also been sick with fever since Jan. 23 and will be transferred to Prince of Wales Hospital for isolation. The domestic helper, on the other hand, was asymptomatic but will have to be transferred to Lady  MacLehose Holiday Village in Sai Kung for quarantine.