UPDATE 1-Philippines eyes more COVID curbs to halt new variants

* Stricter travel measures on countries with UK variant

* Duterte warns of return of lockdown

* Philippines in talks for 80 mln doses of vaccines
(Recasts lead, Adds Duterte's quotes, details, background)

By Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA, Dec 26 (Reuters) - The Philippines approved measures
on Saturday to slow the spread of new, more infectious
coronavirus variants, as President Rodrigo Duterte warned of a
second lockdown should cases spike before the country gets its
first vaccines in May.

Countries around the world have in recent days closed their
borders to flights from Britain and South Africa, where more
infectious variants have been detected.

Duterte extended an existing a ban on flights from Britain
by two weeks to mid-January, and said the Philippines would
impose travel curbs on countries with local community
transmission of the UK variant.

With more than 469,000 infections and 9,067 deaths, the
Philippines has the second highest number of COVID-19 cases and
casualties in Southeast Asia, next to Indonesia.

Neither the UK nor the South African variant have been
detected there yet, however.

In an emergency meeting with health experts and government
officials, Duterte also ordered a 14-day quarantine for
passengers who have come from or transited through Britain, and
from countries where the more infectious COVID-19 variant first
identified there was detected, including Hong Kong, Singapore,
Australia and Japan.

Duterte pledged free vaccines for the country's 108 million
population, with shipments and inoculation to start in May.

"If (in the meantime) severity in numbers would demand that
we take corrective measures immediately, then we should just
have to go back to lockdown," he said.

In mid-March, the Philippines imposed one of the world's
longest and toughest coronavirus lockdowns, which were gradually
relaxed in June to allow a slow reopening of the economy.

The Philippines is in talks to acquire around 80 million
doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including from Pfizer Inc, Moderna
and Britain's AstraZeneca, as well as Johnson & Johnson, India's
Novavax Inc, China's Sinovac and Russia's Gamaleya Institute.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Andrew Heavens
and John Stonestreet)