New Covid-19 strain prompts PHL to tweak travel rules

Foreign nationals currently allowed to enter the Philippines are those who already possess resident visas, the diplomatic corps, heads of multinational companies, those working for foreign nongovernment organizations, as well as balikbayans, even those who are already passport-holders of their adopted countries and their foreign spouses and children.

Meanwhile, separate government sources who declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak on the matter, also said the IATF will be meeting this morning to discuss “the final outcome” of an expanded travel ban, if any.

A member of the IATF technical working group had apparently recommended a total closure of the country’s borders because of the new virus strain. But, the sources said, “We have to consider our OFWS (overseas Filipino workers) whose contracts/visas have expired, homesick, sick, etc. Do we ban them too? And for how long. There are many issues to be settled.”

In a related development, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said it “empathizes with the affected families who would not be able to spend the holidays with their loved ones from the UK,” even as it threw its “unequivocal support” to Duterte’s decision to suspend all flights from the UK.

Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat in a news statement reiterated that ensuring public health and safety takes precedence, even as the IATF carefully reviews the restriction on the entry of foreign nationals into the country.

All foreign carriers which had transported passengers from the UK, including those with layovers in other countries such as the Middle East, are also covered by the flight suspension.

IATF resolution 90 dated Dec. 22, had also directed passengers in transit from the UK before the flight ban on Dec. 24, to be quarantined for 14 days at the Athletes’ Village in New Clark City “notwithstanding a negative RT-PCR result.”

The DOT and DFA were the government agencies that had appealed to allow balikbayans and their foreign spouses and children to come home for the holidays, in a bid to lift the tourism industry and spur the economy.

Local transmission

ALTHOUGH health experts have agreed that travel ban will help in preventing the entry of the new variant that was detected in the UK, they warned that local transmission is still possible.

“So, kung nangyari ‘yun sa UK, pwede ring mangyari sa atin [If it happened in UK, it can happen also to us]. Actually, di nga natin kailangang mag- antay ng importation [Actually, we don’t have to wait for that to happen],” said Dr. Anna OngLim, Division Chief of the Infectious and Tropical Disease, Department of Pediatrics at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine during a Department of Health (DOH) media forum.

Lim also said it is also possible that a new variant may emerge in the Philippines.

Dr. Cynthia Saloma, Philippine Genome Center Executive Director, echoed Lim saying, “it is very possible that locally the virus may mutate.”

“And we have to watch out for patients who are immunocompromised,” Saloma said, stressing the need to conduct genome sequencing to monitor mutations.

Dr. Celia Carlos, Director of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), noted that viruses like the one that causes Covid-19 are living organisms that can multiply.

“If you are watchful of the sequences that have been emerging in other countries, we should also be watchful of the sequences which are emerging in our country,” Carlos said.

“We never can tell what type of changes or mutations can happen even among our isolates. And whether these changes will cause more severe illness or will not be important at all.”

Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III assured that the government will boost genomic surveillance in the country amid the threat of the new variant.

“We support all the recommendations of our experts because we need to strengthen the capacity of our genomic surveillance [and to] institutionalize this as a comprehensive system,” Duque said.

Genome sequencing

SPECIMENS from travelers, who will test positive for Covid-19 from affected countries, will be sent to the Philippine Genome Center, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, and the University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health, for genome sequencing.

The measure is part of the Department of Science and Technology-philippine Council for Health Research and Development’s (DOST-PCHRD) “biosurveillance” to determine if they are carriers of the new strain of Covid-19 from UK dubbed B117, which is said to be more infectious.

PCHRD Executive Director Jamime Montoya said the government will also conduct regular genome sequencing for cases in areas in the country, where there are clusters of infection.

“We have to bear in mind that the mutations, as was already repeatedly mentioned by the medical experts, will not only happen from outside of the Philippines but can also happen within the country, independent of what is happening outside of the country by virtue of burden of disease infection,” Montoya said during Duterte’s meeting with members of the IATF and medical experts last Saturday.

WHO reservation

THE World Health Organization ( WHO) supported the genome sequencing initiative, but it expressed its reservations about the travel restrictions.

WHO country coordinator Socorro B. Zarate- Escalante noted that international B117 infection remains low and happened in countries, which have “very stringent public health interventions.”

“The WHO recommendation for now is not to restrict travel but to ensure that our public health interventions are in place and that the country is ready to mitigate any event that this new strain will come into the country,” Escalante said.

Vaccine impact

WITH the emergence of the B117, Edsel Maurice T. Salvaña of the government Technical Advisory Group ( TAG) for Covid-19, said there is no assurance that existing vaccines or those which are still under development will work on the new strain.

“There is no guarantee that it will not continue to mutate and then the vaccine will start to lose efficacy,” Salvaña said.

But based on their initial data on B117, he said the existing vaccines are likely to work on it since it has minimal variance from the regular strain of Covid-19.

Furthermore, he said vaccine developers have already taken note of the new strain and they may implement the necessary modifications in their vaccines to fight it.

Currently, the government is negotiating to secure a Covid-19 vaccine from Novavax, Astrazeneca, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, Sinovac, and Gamaleya.

Among the said manufacturers, Pfizer-biontech, have applied for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of their vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration.

The EUA is necessary before a Covid-19 vaccine or drug is allowed for local use.