Phl now denying visas to Wuhan tourists
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has started denying applications for visa-upon-arrival (VUA) by tour groups from Wuhan City, China due to risks posed by the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
The decision to deny VUA for tourists from Wuhan came after the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) suspended all direct flights from the city to the Philippines, BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said yesterday.
The BI launched the VUA program in 2017 to attract more tourists and investors from China.
Before the flight suspension, the BI recorded 1,122 tourist arrivals and 901 departures on board Pan Pacific Airlines and 637 and 750 arrivals and departures, respectively on Royal Air from Dec. 1 to 31.
A total of 2,164 arrivals and 1,741 departures on Pan Pacific Airlines and 848 arrivals and 567 departures on Royal Air were recorded from Jan. 1 to 24.
Authorities are intensifying efforts
to prevent the 2019-nCoV from entering the country.
Meanwhile, a Brazilian family of three, including a 10-year-old boy, who traveled to Wuhan were put in hospital isolation in Puerto Princesa, Palawan last Friday.
Ospital ng Palawan medical staff chief Audie Cipriano said the child had fever and difficulty breathing while the father had sore throat.
The parents did not have fever but as a precautionary measure, the family was placed in isolation.
The STAR tried but failed to reach the DOH to validate the report.
Reagents, primer
The Research Institute for Tropical
Medicine (RITM) is acquiring reagents and the primer of the virus to be used in conducting confirmatory tests on suspected cases, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said yesterday.
This developed as the Department of Health (DOH) submitted to the Victorian Infectious Disease Reference Laboratory in Melbourne, Australia the oropharyngeal and serum specimens collected from a from a five-year-old Chinese boy in Cebu City suspected of having 2019-nCoV.
Duque said he instructed RITM director Celia Carlos to look for the reagents and the primer as part of the measures being undertaken by the DOH to prepare for the possible entry of 2019-nCoV.
He gave assurance that by having the reagents and the primer, the RITM would no longer have to send samples of a person tested positive for coronavirus to a laboratory abroad for confirmatory tests.
The boy tested positive for nonspecific pancoronavirus assay, a screening tool for coronaviruses, when examined at the RITM.
This prompted the DOH to seek confirmatory tests in Australia, which eventually yielded negative results for 2019-nCoV.
This leaves the country with only a single suspected case, a 36-yearold man from Wuhan City who arrived in Tacloban on Jan. 17.
The man had fever and cough, which are symptoms of the illness.
According to Duque, the RITM is expecting to receive the primer from Japan next week while it is looking for a possible supplier of the reagents.
A reagent is a substance used in laboratories to detect or measure other substances.
A primer pertains to the specific “sequencing of amino acid” that identifies a certain virus from the others.
“A primer is like a person’s thumb mark. No two people have the same thumb mark. Each and every virus also has its own amino acid sequence or identifying marks that are unique to each of them,” he added.
Fake news
Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo has asked the public to be discerning on what they hear and read about the 2019-nCoV so they would not contribute to the confusion and panic.
“Our request to the public is to look at the DOH site and reliable news agencies. Don’t blindly believe if someone says there is a positive case of the novel coronavirus, that there is a patient in a particular place. Be discerning,” Domingo said.