One of the 11 crew members of MV Athens Bridge who turned positive for the B11672 Covid variant died on Friday [May 21, 2021], Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire confirmed on Monday.
“’Yung sa apat na na-confine, isa ay namatay [One of the four crew members who were confined has died] last week. I think that was Friday,” Vergeire said in an online media forum on Monday.
Vergeire added that other crew members are either recuperating or have recovered already.
On May 6, 2021, MV Athens was allowed to dock in Manila after it was denied to enter Vietnam. The vessel, reported to have had travel history to India, has been allowed to dock in Manila after 12 of its Filipino crew members were positive for Covid-19, and in need of emergency medical aid. There were a total of 21 Filipinos onboard the vessel.
Vergeire said that two members were already experiencing difficulty in breathing and were immediately brought to a hospital.
“They were immediately checked. They were tested,” Vergeire then said after the crew members were transferred to a quarantine facility after the Department of Health, through the Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ), gave the necessary assistance to the crew members.
All of them re-swabbed and their samples sere went for genome sequencing. The results later showed that nine crew members of MV Athens turned positive of B11672 variant.