The Department of Health (DOH) insisted that imposing a travel ban on Vietnam over the discovery of a new hybrid COVID-19 variant need to be studied first.
Health Spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the World Health Organization is studying the new hybrid COVID-19 variant.
“Vietnam has uncovered a new COVID-19 variant combining characteristics of the two existing variants first found in India and the UK,” Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said in a report on Reuters.
“That the new one is an Indian variant with mutations that originally belong to the UK variant is very dangerous,” the health official said in a document obtained by Reuters.
“Ang WHO… sinasabi nilang hindi pa nila nakukuha ‘yung lahat ng detalye at nakikipag-coordinate pa sila sa Vietnam at pag-aaralan pa nila nang mas mabuti para makapagbigay sila ng guidance sa mga bansa,” Vergeire said.
Vergeire added that a travel ban will be imposed if the WHO will classify the hybrid variant as ‘variant of concern’.
“If that would be something na sasabihin po ng WHO at sinabi nila na ang classification is ‘of concern,’ nandiyan po ‘yung posibilidad na maaari naman po nating gawin ‘yan,” she said.
“Hindi po natin kailangan mag-panic dahil po dito sa balitang ito. Pag-igtingin lang po natin ang pagpapatupad ng ating health protocols and we will be protected from any of these variants,” Vergeire said in a radio interview on DZBB.
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