CV’s Quarantine Bureau: Mandatory health declaration checklist to all flights arriving in Mactan airport
All passengers arriving at the Mactan Cebu International airport are required to fill up the health declaration checklist. | Morexette Marie B. Erram
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Bureau of Quarantine in Central Visayas (BOQ-7) has expanded the coverage of the mandatory health declaration checklist to all flights arriving at Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA).
Dr. Terence Anthony Bermejo, BOQ-7 director, announced this in a press conference on Monday, February 3.
Bermejo said that the bureau together with Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia decided to implement this measure in line with the temporary travel ban imposed to travelers from the whole of China, including Macau and Hong Kong.
“We will be including (this requirement to) passengers from other destinations. This means — all passengers from all flights arriving at Mactan,” Bermejo said.
Read more: MCIA: 79 Pinoys who arrived from China on Feb. 2 under self quarantine
The mandatory filling up of declaration of travelers at MCIA was initially implemented for flights coming from China only.
Bermejo said that the measure was put in place since they were expecting less to no flights from China after President Rodrigo Duterte, on February 2, implemented travel restrictions on the whole of China.
“We also considered other possibilities that there are foreigners coming from other destinations outside China but may have travelled there recently or came from countries with confirmed cases, too,” Bermejo said in a mix of Cebuano and English.
Read more: DOH-7: Patients under investigation for nCoV in C. Visayas now 15
The Department of Health (DOH) has since announced that there had been two confirmed cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus acute respiratory disease (2019-nCoV ARD) in the country.
The patients, both Chinese tourists from Wuhan City, entered the country on January 21 at MCIA through a direct flight from Hong Kong to Cebu.
The BOQ-7, for their part, said their personnel, who were believed to have come in contact with the patients had presently shown no symptoms of the disease.
Bermejo said their workers were equipped with prevention gears before the Chinese patients arrived at the airport. /dbs
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