Philippines extends travel ban on India, 9 other nations due to Delta variant
The Philippine government on Friday extended travel restrictions for people coming from India and nine other countries till August 15 in order to monitor the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) amid a spike in daily infections. The nine countries include Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
The Philippines had earlier imposed the travel ban on India on April 29 which was extended. On July 14, the government further extended the travel ban on India along with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the UAE, and Oman till July 31, according to news agency PTI.
The Philippines has so far reported 216 cases of the Delta variant, which was first discovered in India in October 2020. However, experts pointed out there might be more unidentified cases due to the sluggish pace of the country’s genome sequencing capacity, PTI reported. Two weeks back, the country reported its first locally transmitted cases of the variant.
