Following the discovery of its first confirmed cases of the Indian COVID-19 variant detected from two overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Oman and UAE, Health Secretary Francisco Duque has recommended adding the two countries to the travel ban list of the Inter-Agency Task Force.
If approved, it will take into effect until end of May, said Duque.
The health official said on Thursday he would also recommend strict travel restrictions on passengers arriving from the Middle East following the detection of cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in India.
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Currently, the government is only prohibiting the entry of travelers from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka until May 14.
“What is important is we were able to implement an intensified border control, and quarantine and isolation protocols have been followed. That is why we were able to detect these cases plus of course our heightened biosurveillance and improved genomic sequencing,” Duque added.
The World Health Organization revealed that the double mutant COVID-19 variant first detected in India has been found in at least 44 countries.
The UN health agency reported that the B.1.617 variant of COVID-19 had been detected in more than 4,500 samples coming from 44 countries or six WHO regions.
“And WHO has received reports of detections from five additional countries,” it said in a statement.
Apart from India, Britain also has the most number of cases with the Indian variant.
The WHO declared B.1.617 also reclassified as a “variant of concern” or a global health threat.
The B.1.617, has been found in preliminary studies to spread more easily than the original virus.
“And as such we are classifying this as a variant of concern at the global level,” the WHO said in a briefing.
“Even though there is increased transmissibility demonstrated by some preliminary studies, we need much more information about this virus variant in this lineage in all of the sub-lineages, so we need more sequencing, targeted sequencing to be done,” it added.
The WHO is currently monitoring 10 coronavirus variants in the world.
