MANILA, Philippines - Passengers from Hong Kong should be strictly monitored at the airport to prevent the entry of bird flu in the country, Health Secretary Enrique Ona said Friday.
"It's also alarming. We should be very attentive. In this situation, we should closely monitor passengers from Hong Kong, China," Ona said in an interview on ABS-CBN's morning show, "Umagang Kay Ganda."
Ona said that aside from China, other countries that are reported to have confirmed cases of bird flu were Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam.
He said the Department of Health (DOH), in coordination with airport authorities, will re-intensify the monitoring of in-bound passengers through installed thermal scanners at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
He added that the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources have intensified their bird flu watch.
The DOH has said that it has enough stockpile of Tamiflu in case the bird flu enters the country.
In a separate interview on Umagang Kay Ganda, Manila International Airport Authority chief Jose Honrado clarified that they did not stop using thermal scanners.
Honrado said that they just toned down the use of thermal scanners and strictly used them for selected batches of passengers.
He said a total of 9 thermal scanners are installed in the 3 terminals of the NAIA.
Honrado added that they will seek guidance from the DOH and other government units to be able to intensify their watch against bird flu.
The bird flu alarm was raised again after Hong Kong confirmed its first human bird flu (avian influenza or H5N1) case on Thursday.
Hong Kong has already raised its bird flu alert to “serious” because of the case. The patient is a 59-year-old woman who returned from a visit to the Chinese mainland.
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