Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has extended for another two weeks the ban on flights from the United Kingdom (UK) over a new reported variant of the coronavirus.

The ban was supposed to expire on December 31.

Duterte approved the recommendation during a meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) on Saturday evening, December 26.

“I propose an extension of the travel ban for all flights coming from the UK for another two weeks,” said Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque during the meeting.

Duterte approved it on the spot, saying “Okay, I accept that, it’s good, it’s amended accordingly.”

The Philippines first suspended flights from the UK on December 23, joining other countries in UK travel bans over a new, possibly more infectious variant of SARS-CoV-2.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said that passengers coming from countries with the reported new variant will have to undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine. Recently, inbound passengers are able to leave their quarantine hotels as early as they get a negative result, which is sometimes as fast as within 24 hours.

Countries that have reported the new variant include Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia, said Roque.

Detecting the new variant

Duterte approved the proposal of the health department and health experts at the meeting to boost efforts to detect the new virus variant through biosurveillance and genome sequencing.

There will be “purposing sampling” of positive COVID-19 swab test samples obtained from November to December, said Duque. These samples will be analyzed by institutes like the Philippine Genome Center to check if they indicate the new variant.

Dr Jaime Montoya of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development said the government must watch out for fast transmissions in clusters of cases and be sure to have their test samples analyzed.

“So may I suggest that genomic surveillance as part of the biosurveillance should in — should be strengthened to include targeted sequencing in high-risk groups, for example, like clusters with increased cases, clusters with increased severity and deaths, because these are actually the indicators for probably new variants arising in the Philippine population,” he told Duterte.

Travel bans on other countries possible

Duterte also approved Duque’s recommendation that travel restrictions in other countries will be imposed “when transmission of the new variant in these countries have been confirmed at the community level,” said Roque in a statement on Sunday.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra also proposed fast-tracking the implementation of an advanced passenger information system so the Bureau of Immigration can better track the origins and connecting flights of incoming passengers. – Rappler.com