Strengthening the contact tracing efforts of local government units will a key strategy in containing the new and more transmissible coronavirus disease (COVID-19) strain, according to the testing czar of the Philippines.
Baguio City Mayor and contact tracing czar Benjamin Magalong Jr. said LGUs should not rely on the national government in carrying out contact tracing efforts.
“They should not simply rely on the Departemnt of Health, and the PNP. Dapat local governments should take the leap in contact tracing,” Magalong said.
The new COVID-19 variant first detected in the United Kingdom has reached the Philippines on January 13.
The DOH, together with the Philippine Genome Center, confirmed that the B.1.1.7. SARS-CoV-2 variant had been detected from Filipino who returned home from the United Arab Emirates on Jan. 7.
“The said patient is a male resident of Quezon City who departed for Dubai on December 27, 2020 for business purposes and arrived in the Philippines last January 7, 2021 via Emirates Flight No. EK 332,” the health department said.
Contact tracing was immediately done by authorities, and initially identified contacts are now under strict home quarantine. Furthermore, the Quezon city government said the patient’s immediate household contacts have also been brought to an isolation facility where they were tested.
It is believed that the UK variant is a more contagious mutation of the novel coronavirus.
