All travellers – including OFWs (overseas Filipino workers), tourists, and foreigners – arriving in and departing from the Philippines are now required to declare if they have shown symptoms such as “rashes, vesicles, or blisters” in the past 30 days prior to their travel as part of the country’s intensified surveillance against mpox (formerly monkeypox).
The latest requirement is included in the updated e-travel form that a passenger needs to fill out online. It forms part of data collection for travellers who are going in and out of the Philippines that is “used for border control, health surveillance, and economic data analysis”.
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The Philippine Department of Health (DOH) said on Thursday that the added measure is aimed at “preventing the entry of additional mpox cases from abroad, particularly clade 1b”.
“There has been just one small yet significant change in the screening questions of the DOH Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) asked of travellers, as part of the electronic travel form.
“Should a traveller answer ‘yes’ when asked if they have been sick in the past 30 days, the drop down list will now include the option ‘rashes, vesicles, or blisters’. It is important for all travellers to be honest in answering this question,” the Philippine health ministry said.
The DOH said “if the traveller is determined to be from a country with an mpox outbreak, or has history of exposure to mpox cases, or exhibits signs and symptoms of the disease, then the etravel.gov.ph system will alert the Bureau of Immigration and the DOH-BOQ. The traveller will undergo a second screening and, if ever determined to be a suspected case, be transferred to an mpox referral hospital.”
Current number of cases
Philippine health ministry reported on Wednesday two new mpox cases, bringing the number of active cases to five. The country has recorded a total of 14 mpox cases since July 2022 – of which nine have long recovered since 2023.
According to health officials, the common symptoms of mpox include a skin rash or mucosal lesions, which can last from two to four weeks. The rashes are accompanied by fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy, and swollen lymph nodes.
Mpox has been a public health problem in parts of Africa since 1970, but received little global attention until it surged internationally in 2022, prompting the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare a global health emergency. That declaration ended 10 months later. But a new strain of the virus, known as clade 1b, has the world’s attention again after the WHO declared a new health emergency.