The Department of Health (DOH) is not inclined to recommend travel restrictions in countries with confirmed cases of the South African variant of COVID-19.

“Right now, we do not see the need to restrict our borders to any countries with the new variant. We have just lifted our travel ban,” DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a virtual press briefing.

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Last January, the Philippines imposed a travel ban on at least 36 territories with confirmed cases of the more transmissible UK COVID-19 variant.

Vergeire explained that the country “cannot remain to be on lockdown or restricted or isolated forever”.

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The health official said that what the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) already followed the recommendation of experts to impose more stringent protocols to testing, quarantine, and isolation of arriving travelers.

Vergeire assured the public that it will not relax its policies to prevent the entry of new COVID-19 variants. (TDT)

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