The Department of Health (DOH) said they would recommend that incoming travelers would be tested for COVID-19 seven or eight days after they arrived in the Philippines, said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.
Under the current regulation, travelers are tested five days after their arrival unless they present symptoms at an earlier date.
According to Vergeire, new evidence showed that the viral load is still high until the seventh or eighth day.
“That’s why we are revising again our protocol and we will be presenting to IATF to adopt this kind of implementation,” the DOH official said in an interview on ANC.
“We want to be sure that we get to identify all of these travelers coming in accurately so that we can isolate properly and we can break the chain of transmission, but this is still for approval in the IATF,” she added.
DOH decided to revise the protocols after it observed that some local government units no longer strictly enforce the mandatory 14-day quarantine once travelers are endorsed to them after testing.
“We have seen that there are lapses in this kind of protocol that’s why we are revising so that we can have stricter border control especially now that there are different variants,” Vergeire said.
DOH to recommend testing on 7th, 8th day for arriving travelers
Meanwhile, according to Resolution 113 adopted by the Inter-Agency Task Force, the following foreign nationals are allowed to enter the country provided they should have/be:
- valid and existing visa at the time of entry, except for those qualified under the Balikbayan program;
- pre-booked accommodation for at least seven nights in an accredited quarantine hotel/facility;
- subject to COVID-19 testing at the quarantine hotel/facility on the sixth (6th) day from date of arrival; and
- subject to the maximum capacity of inbound passengers at the port and date of entry.
Previously, the entry of foreigners should be within the daily limit of incoming passengers as may be implemented by the Department of Transportation.
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