Seven passengers of the Emirates Flight EK 332 that carried the Filipino who tested positive for the UK-variant of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are yet to be located, the Department of Health said Monday.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that seven of the 214 identified contacts of the Filipino patient remained to be untraced.
“In a matter of days we were able to contact all of them except for seven persons whose address(es) and even contact numbers ay hindi namin mahanap (cannot be traced),” Vergeire said.
Of the 214 contacts of the case confirmed with the UK variant, six of them are household members, 49 are health staff who attended to the case, and 159 are the other passengers of EK332.
“We are currently awaiting the full report on the results of those tested with RT-PCR but all household members and health staff are asymptomatic and isolated, while 152/159 (96%) (of the) passengers have been assessed and all are in quarantine,” Vergeire said.
The undersecretary explained that during that time, the United Arab Emirates was not part of the travel restrictions.
However, all passengers were still required to undergo the usual protocol when arriving into the country.
“Kapag ikaw ay nag-test negative na (If you tested negative), you can be allowed to go home and quarantine at home. So ganon ang nangyari sa mga pasahero ng Emirates flight (So, that’s what happened with the passengers of the Emirates flight),” Vergeire said.
She added that the department was able to coordinate with the passengers’ respective local government units to put them under quarantine.
The Health official further said that there are no additional strains detected in the country.
“We have not detected an additional strain,” Vergeire said. “All of these positive cases, among those traced were sent for genome sequencing. It is now being processed. We might have results tomorrow or Wednesday.”