06/10/2009 | 05:17 PM
MANILA, Philippines — To help prevent the spread of influenza A(H1N1) virus, the government is requiring overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are on vacation in the country to wear face masks and go on self-quarantine for 10 days.
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief Jennifer Manalili said the measure is in line with a Department of Health (DOH) directive to place the agency's Balik Manggagawa counter under close watch following the case of the first Filipino nurse who tested positive of A(H1N1) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The nurse, who works at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, was processed by the staff at the POEA-Balik Manggagawa last May 25. She left the country last May 29, developed fever one day later, and was admitted at a hospital in Riyadh last June 2.
Manalili said OFWs have to comply with the rule as part of the requirement for the processing of their overseas employment contract (OEC), which gives them travel tax exemption.
This means that OFWs can only apply for an OEC more than 10 days after their arrival in the Philippines.
"The DOH said that it should be the returning OFWs who should wear face masks and not the POEA staff, so we are implementing this," Manalili told reporters.
"We are taking precautions ... so we asked them also to observe the 10-day self-quarantine period before processing their documents," she added.
In requiring OFWs to take the necessary precaution, Manalili stressed that the POEA wants to protect its staff.
A minimum of 2,500 OECs are processed daily at POEA, half of them for vacationing OFWs.
Manalili said the DOH's National Epidemiology Center (NEC) has cleared all the staff that processed the papers of the nurse who went to Riyadh.
"They have completed the contact tracing and so far no one was infected," Manalili said, quoting NEC head Dr. Eric Tayag.
She said the nurse has already reported for work, while her husband and other family members were cleared by the Saudi Ministry of Health last week. - GMANews.TV
From GMANews.tv; see the source article here.
No comments:
Post a Comment