MANILA - The Department of Health (DOH) on Saturday issued a new classification system for persons being checked for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) just as government geared for increased testing and cases in the country continued to rise.

Under Administrative Order No. 2020-0013, the DOH changed the classification to "suspect," "probable" and "confirmed," with the first two covering those previously tagged as persons under investigation.

It also removed the "person under monitoring" classification.

Under the new system, the DOH classifies those with symptoms but remain untested as "suspect," while those awaiting results are "probable."

Meanwhile, patients with positive results from official testing labs will be considered "confirmed" cases.

“The evidence of local and community transmission of COVID-19 necessitated a review on the assessment and classification of individuals with the aim of early detection and laboratory confirmation,” DOH said in the memorandum dated Thursday, April 9.

Under the new system, patients are classified as follows:

SUSPECT

A patient will be classified as "suspect" if they fall under any of the three:

1. Patient has the following symptoms:
- Fever of at least 38 degrees C
- Cough
- Throat Pain

And either of the two:
- Has travel history or lives in community with local COVID-19 transmission within 14 days since start of symptoms
- Had close contact with a confirmed or probable COVID-19 case within 14 days since start of symptoms

2. Patient has the following symptoms:
- Fever
- Cough
- Difficulty breathing

And is any of the following:
- 60 years old and above
- Has preexisting condition
- Has sensitive pregnancy
- A health worker

3. Patient experiences sudden onset of lung illness with severe symptoms of unknown origin and needs hospitalization

PROBABLE

A person will be classified as "probable" if he/she was earlier tagged as a "suspect" and has the following:
- still undetermined COVID-19 results
- test was not done in an official laboratory with RT-PCR test (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, considered the “gold standard” in COVID-19 testing)
- remains untested

CONFIRMED

A person will be considered a confirmed COVID-19 case if RT-PCR testing shows positive result for coronavirus.

As of April 10, around 4,195 COVID-19 cases have been recorded nationwide, with 140 recovering and 221 dead from the disease since the start of the pandemic.