The Department of Health (DoH) said Tuesday that it recommended to impose travel restrictions on countries with the reported case of the new coronavirus variant.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the recommendation is subject for the approval of the Office of the President.
“We have recommended that there should be a travel ban also for 14 days, aside from the UK (United Kingdom), for these other countries that have already been identified with the new variant,” said Vergeire during a press briefing.
“Ilalabas palang ng Office of the President ‘yung guidelines,” she added.
Some of the countries that already detected the new coronavirus variant include Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, France, as well as the Netherlands.
Vergeire said that the Philippine Genome Center has already started to conduct genome sequencing to determine whether or not the new variant is already present in the country.
“The Philippine Genome Center has started receiving samples coming from our laboratories – those coming from UK and from the other affected countries,” she said.
The DoH spokesperson also noted that there were 85 travelers from the UK, who arrived in the Philippines before the travel restriction. Among them, one tested positive for COVID-19.
“Among these 85, ang meron na tayong resulta ay 82. Eighty-one ay negative, one is positive, ‘yung tatlo pending pa rin. We will wait for the results of these three pending,” she said. (Analou de Vera)
