COVID -19 IN THE PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD: PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS

Abstract

The PCG is tasked by the Philippine government for the orderly processing of returning travelers and workers to the Philippines by conducting SARS CoV 2 swab sample collection, health checks and quarantine in ports and international airports in the country. This study is a preliminary characterization of COVID-19 in a uniformed service responsible for COVID-19 suppression in the Philippines. We characterized the frequency of positive SARS CoV 2 cases and clinical COVID-19 presentation of 1726 personnel of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), 130 current cases and 35 recovered cases. From the clinical reports of rtPCR diagnosed personnel, the symptoms presented were obtained from a database and analyzed using Factor Analysis and log-linear regression to determine if symptoms are associated with gender. Factor analysis suggests a grouping of symptoms with cough, fever and sore throat consisting of one symptom cluster and aguesia (loss of sense of taste) and anosmia (loss of sense of smell), body aches and flu like symptoms consisting of another symptom cluster. Anosmia (loss of sense of smell) has of 7.2%, sore throat 7.4% and ageusia (loss of sense of taste) 33.9% odds ratio. They account for the highest odds ratio in all symptoms reported. There are also a correlation of the ABO blood types in COVID-19 symptomatology. Individuals with blood type O is noted to have the least number of symptoms when compared to the population with blood type A who registered with the most symptoms. The results give insight on the symptomology of COVID-19 in a uniformed service with frontline COVID-19 suppression duties. These can provide clinical guidance to physicians who need a rapid diagnostic for COVID-19 prior to confirmatory RT-PCR diagnosis.