A partnership of employers and unions has booked out two major hotels in Manila to accommodate seafarers in a trial scheme intended to verify the Covid-19 status of ship crews.

The move, which will launch next week, could potentially accelerate efforts to relieve hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded on ships during the pandemic.

It also comes amid allegations of falsified Covid-19 testing certification and continued Covid-19 outbreaks among onboard crew. Australian maritime authorities are reported to be considering banning ships with positive coronavirus cases onboard.

Up to 400 rooms have been reserved for heavily discounted rates at the Manila Marriott Hotel and the St Giles Hotel in Makati.

Seafarers will be tested on arrival and departure, and quarantined for two weeks at the hotels. Regular temperature testing will take place during the quarantine.

The Covid-19 status will be verified through a blockchain product called myHealth Pass, which was recently launched by Hong Kong-based initiative Crew Assist.

The project has been organised by the International Maritime Employers' Council (IMEC) working together with the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) and the Associated Marine Officers’ and Seamans' Union of the Philippines (AMOSUP).

The first rooms will be available for booking from 28 October.

Critical role

AMOSUP, the shipping industry’s largest national seafarer union, is playing a critical role in providing its own hospital and seafarer medical facilities to carry out the testing.

The testing system is being audited by the Singapore maritime authorities, with a view to white-listing the facilities. Discussions with the Australian maritime authorities are also close to being concluded. French classification society Bureau Veritas is providing auditing services to the scheme.

The initiative also has the backing of the Singapore Shipping Tripartite Alliance Resilience (SG-STAR) Fund, which was established to develop initiatives to tackle the crew-change crisis.

IMEC chief executive Francesco Gargiulo told TradeWinds that he is hopeful more quarantine capacity can shortly be secured at hotels in Manila, and that there are already plans to extend the scheme to other major seafarer-supply countries, including India and Ukraine.

Questions over negative Covid-19 tests

“This project started with the aim of addressing concerns raised by a number of crew-change hubs in recent weeks over the authenticity of Covid-negative tests obtained in the Philippines and over the efficacy of pre-embarkation quarantine served by joiners before being deployed,” he said.

Singapore is a key crew-change hub, but it has been forced to tighten its restrictions following a series of cases of falsified Covid-19 test certification.

Concern has been raised by maritime authorities in Australia as a result of cases of seafarers testing positive on board the 83,400-dwt bulker Key Integrity (built 2011) and 12,900-dwt livestock carrier Al Messilah (built 1980).

The severity of shipping’s ongoing crew crisis is forcing many ships trading between Australia and Far Eastern countries — a major dry bulk route — to divert to Manila and other Asian countries to carry out crew changes.

However, a number of charterers have responded recently by insisting on “non-diversion” crew-change clauses in their charterparty contracts.