Local airlines say flights manifest already with DOH

MANILA, Philippines — Local airlines on Tuesday said they have already furnished the Department of Health (DOH) the list of passengers on the same flights taken by the two Chinese nationals who tested positive for novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines (PAL) each issued their respective statements on the matter as DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III cited local carriers’ alleged refusal to share information about their passengers for the health agency’s slow contact tracing.

The health department has been carrying out contact tracing in a bid to locate all individuals who had close interaction with the Chinese couple who were found positive for 2019-nCoV. One of them, the 44-year-old man, died February 1 due to severe pneumonia at the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila. The couple arrived in the Philippines on January 21 and has traveled to Cebu and Dumaguete before flying to Manila on January 25. The couple came from Wuhan, the epicenter of the 2019-nCoV epidemic.

“CEB (Cebu Pacific) has been in close coordination with the Department of Health (DOH), the Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) and other government agencies to help manage the risk of contamination from the Novel Coronavirus (nCoV) and has been working with the government from the beginning,” Cebu Pacific said in a statement.

“Per the request of both the DOH and BOQ, CEB has already provided a list of the passengers aboard both flights. There is no impediment whatsoever for CEB to provide any and all information that the DOH and BOQ would need from us for their purposes,” it added.

Cebu Pacific also said it has already contacted the passengers aboard the concerned flights taken by the Chinese couple, and have updated DOH and BOQ “on those we have been able to speak with.”

“As an additional measure, Cebu Pacific opened a hotline to enable passengers aboard the specific flights to call the airline,” it added.

For its part, PAL said it has already released to DOH, through BOQ, the “full unredacted manifest” of its January 25, 2020, Flight PR2542 from Dumaguete to Manila.

PAL said the flight manifest includes contact details of the passengers aboard the flight.

“We are also assisting the BOQ in the call-out of the passengers. We will always do our part to cooperate fully with the responsible authorities when it concerns the health and safety of the general public,” it added.

During the Senate health panel hearing on the government’s response to the 2019-nCoV outbreak, Duque has reported that only 17 percent of the Chinese couple’s co-passengers have been contacted by his department, adding that airline firms were allegedly refusing to share passenger records invoking confidentiality.

But a PAL official, who was present during the hearing, refuted this.

PAL Vice President for Security Ronnie Ordoyo told senators that PAL and Cebu Pacific have already cooperated with the epidemiology bureau regarding the contact tracing.

Edited by KGA

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