低感染者地域間のCOVID検査緩和案 浮上

WHOフィリピン代表のRabindra Abeyasinghe博士が「COVIDが非常に低い地域から、COVIDが非常に低い地域に移動する場合、検査の必要性を緩和することが必要かもしれませんが、慎重に決定しなければなりません。」と語りました。

WHO側から検疫に関して緩和に助言を呈するのはやや異例ともいえますね。
それほどまでに、フィリピン経済からなるフィリピン国民の健康を危惧しているということですが、最近の物価の上昇などを見ると感染拡大のリスクはあれど、経済が回らなければ仕事がなく、仕事がなければお金がなく、お金がなければ…の悪循環を考えると必要なのかもしれません。

各自治体の慎重な判断が要求されます。

以下、MANILA BUKKETINより抜粋

PH’s plan to remove COVID-19 testing as a requirement for travel needs careful assessment – WHO official

An official of the World Health Organization (WHO) believes the plan of the government to remove coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing as a requirement for travel needs to be carefully assessed.

“I think it needs to be carefully calibrated on where there is value for removing the requirement for testing,” WHO Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe said in a virtual forum on Tuesday, Feb. 23.

“If you are traveling from an area with very low COVID to another area with very low COVID maybe there is an opportunity to relax the need for testing, but that has to be very carefully assessed,” he added.

The WHO official said another important thing to be kept in mind is the threat of the circulation of new variants.

“The fact is we want to minimize the spread of these new variants to areas,” said Abeyasinghe.

“So from this scenario a very careful decision needs to be made,” he added.

Meanwhile, the WHO official also addressed the concerns on the delays in the early rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.

“I must reiterate that the commitments from the Philippines to the COVAX were all fulfilled on time. But there have been delays in finalizing the commitments between Pfizer and the Philippine government,” said Abeyasinghe.

“We believe that the limited quantity of Pfizer vaccines will be shipped… once exchange of letters are completed and requirements are met by the Philippine government and Pfizer,” he added.

The Philippines was originally set to receive 117,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines sometime in the middle of February.