Travelers to the Philippines to take the Covid-19 test on 5th day of arrival

Travelers to the Philippines to take the Covid-19 test on 5th day of arrival

With students soon scheduled to travel to the Philippines to pursue their MBBS at DMSF, here is a quick update on Covid-19 restrictions as imposed by the officials of the Philippines. These Covid-19 restrictions of travelling to the Philippines has been announced on 27th Jan’21.

As per the latest update on foreign travels, the national government has mandated a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing, five days after the arrival of the Traveler in the Philippines starting 1st February 2021. This has been reported by Malacanang on Wednesday after Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque confirmed that this new testing protocol was adopted by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) last Tuesday in light of recent updates on Covid-19.

In a statement, Roque explained that arriving passengers, irrespective of their origin, will be required to undergo facility-based quarantine upon arrival. Post which, the passengers will have to undergo the RT-PCR test on the fifth day from their date of arrival in the country unless the Traveler develops or shows signs of infection or symptoms before the scheduled fifth-day test.

The passenger will be endorsed to the Local Government Unit of destination where the Traveler will be made to continue the remnant of the 14-day quarantine. This is to mitigate the risk of Covid-19 and limiting the risk across all channels.

During this, proper patient management will be followed as stipulated in the guidelines of the Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and the Department of Health Omnibus Guidelines on Prevention, Detection, Isolation, Treatment and Reintegration strategies for Covid-19.

The Directive of President, Rodrigo Duerte said the IATF also postponed the relaxation of age-based restrictions in areas under the Modified General Community Quarantine. (MGCQ)

Apart from these, the usual practices of thermal checks, swab tests, disinfectant drive and other safety measures will be in place. To ensure the precise, scheduled and efficient distribution and administration of the Covid-19 vaccine, the IATF authorized the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to carry out all the required actions necessary to procure the services of a qualified third-party service provider to cater to all the services related to the design approval, IT project implementation, and service management of the Philippine Covid-19 Vaccine Information Management System. (VIMS)

The DICT will be responsible for formulating the standards to ascertain the qualifications of the third-party service providers in undertaking the desired services in the VIMS. To inoculate an initial 50 to 70 million Filipinos this year, The Philippines aims to secure at least 148 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine.