MANILA: Hong Kong health officials bared the detected the new United Kingdom Covid-19 variant from a passenger who arrived from Manila last month.
Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Hong Kong Health Department’s communicable disease branch, said in a virtual briefing they found the new variant from a 30-year old female resident who arrived from Manila on Dec 22 via a Philippine Airlines flight.
The health officials tagged the Manila-outbound Hong Kong resident as case 9003.
“(Case) 9003 took PR 300 and arrived in Hong Kong on the 22nd of December from (the) Philippines,” said Chuang.
Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire on Wednesday said the DOH is coordinating with the International Health Regulations (IHR) focal point of Hong Kong to get more details, adding they are also obtaining the flight manifest.
Aside from the passenger who returned from Manila, Hong Kong health authorities also detected three additional cases of the new Covid-19 variant in the special administrative region. Two of them arrived from London and the other one from France.
The new Covid-19 variant was first reported in UK on Dec 14 and believed to be more contagious, according to initial scientific studies. Based on samples collected in October, the new variant is not yet in the Philippines.
The country has imposed travel ban on foreign nationals from at least 21 jurisdictions, but no restrictions on outbound travel. The results of the study on data collected from November and December on the presence of the new variant will be out by Wednesday or Thursday, health officials said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health in the Philippines on Wednesday said it has not detected the new and more transmissible Covid-19 variant in the Philippines based on results of genome sequencing.
This after reports that a Hong Kong resident who travelled from Manila had tested positive for Covid-19 upon returning to Hong Kong.
“Amid speculations that the UK variant (B.1.1.7) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is already in the Philippines, the Department of Health (DOH) and the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) Wednesday report that the said variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not yet been detected in the country,” the DOH said in a statement.
“Based on the lineage analysis through whole genome sequencing done by the PGC, the UK variant was not detected in any of the 305 positive samples submitted to them from nine institutions,” it added, referring to the process that determines distinct characteristics of variants of Covid-19.
The DOH previously announced that the PGC would gene sequence samples of Covid-positive travellers who had arrived here from the United Kingdom and other countries where the new variant has already spread.
The DOH said that the 305 samples also included hospital admissions from November to December.
“Moreover, the Department is in close coordination with Hong Kong’s International Health Regulations focal point to secure official notification and other pertinent information regarding the Hong Kong resident who tested positive for the variant following travel history from the Philippines,” the DOH said.
The DOH said it already asked local government units and transport regulators to continuously implement health standards.
“Strictly following the minimum public health standards (MPHS) is still the best measure to cut transmission of the variant and minimise the opportunities for virus mutation,” the DOH said.
