Crew members of the MV Athens Bridge, a container ship with several Filipino personnel infected with Covid-19, have been given medical assistance upon arriving at the Port of Manila.
In a Facebook post on Friday, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) said the maritime sector has aided the vessel’s crew of 21 Filipinos, 12 of whom have tested positive for virus.
Two crew members, who are both Filipinos, are in critical condition and were brought to a medical facility, while the rest of the crew are quarantined in the vessel and provided with medical supplies, such as oxygen tanks.
The vessel, which flies the flag of Panama, has secured clearance from the Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) and the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday and was directed to its quarantine anchorage area by the port.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that samples of the crew members of the ship, which was allowed to dock in Manila after it was denied entry to Vietnam, will be sent to the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) for whole genome sequencing.
The vessel, which was reported to have had travel history to India, has been allowed to dock in Manila.
Vergeire said that the two afflicted crew members were already experiencing difficulty in breathing and were immediately extracted to a hospital.
“They [all the crew members] were immediately checked. They were tested,” Vergeire said in an online media forum, adding that they will be all transferred to a quarantine facility after DOH, through the BOQ secure the necessary assistance to the crew members.
“Considering the growing concern of this recent variant first detected in India, we were made aware that the vessel have had travel history to the country. But in deciding our action steps, our guiding principle was that those were our hard-working kababayans aboard and we would never leave any Filipino behind,” Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said.
The two Filipinos needing immediate medical attention were transferred to a hospital in Metro Manila. PNA with Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco
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