The Philippine government will enforce travel restrictions on travelers coming from neighboring countries of India, in a bid to prevent the B.1.617 COVID-19 variant from entering the country.
Experts believe the B.1.617 variant is the cause of the record surge in India, which this week has hit more than 20 million total cases.
The World Health Organization designates B.1.617 as a “variant of interest”, which has also been dubbed a “double mutant.”
In a memorandum from the office of Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, it was said that it was also based on the recommendation of the Department of Health and the Department of Foreign Affairs.
From May 7, 2021 to May 14, 2021, all travelers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka within the past 14 days prior to arrival in the Philippines will not be allowed to enter the country first.
But if they arrive in the country before May 7, 2021, they will be allowed to enter the Philippines but they will have to undergo a 14-days facility-based quarantine and an RT-PCR test.
PH to enforce travel restrictions on travelers from India’s neighboring countries
For Filipino foreigners who have only passed through the aforementioned countries including India, but only stayed at the airport and were not cleared by the immigration authorities, they may be allowed to enter the country.
Meanwhile, 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.
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