Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has extended the lockdown in capital Manila until May 15, his spokesman said on Friday, stretching to eight weeks one of the world's strictest community quarantines, in a move to curb coronavirus infections.

The measures will be expanded to other regions with big outbreaks but modified in lower-risk areas, which would see a partial resumption of work, transport and commerce, Harry Roque told reporters. 

Television broadcast images on Friday of a crisis panel meeting where Duterte had made the decision late the previous day. He even offered a reward of 50 million pesos (986,000 U.S. dollars) to any Filipino who could create a vaccine. 

"We are all at risk, but do not increase the odds or chances of getting it," he said, warning against complacency. 

Manila, a heavily congested city of at least 13 million people and millions more informal settlers, accounts for more than two-thirds of the country's 6,981 infections and 462 deaths.

Duterte also accepted the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases to put some provinces in central and southern Philippines under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) until May 15. 

He said regions, provinces or areas which are considered with moderate- and low-risk in the spread of COVID-19 will be placed under a general community quarantine (GCQ) starting on May 1. 
  
"Areas previously under ECQ but remain under GCQ will allow workers to go out and work in phases. Young people, senior citizens and high health risk would stay at home," Duterte's spokesman Harry Roque said. 

The Philippines introduced curbs on immigration, travel, commerce, gatherings on March 12, five days after the first case of domestic transmission, and expanded on March 16. It is closed to all except repatriated Filipinos. 

The approach aims to keep overstretched health services from being overwhelmed and create a window to ramp up testing, which started slowly to gain ground in recent weeks. 

But with just 72,000 tests, the government last week estimated it had managed to track only a quarter of projected infections. The health ministry has said it was too early to say if the infection curve had been flattened. 

(Cover: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte holds a meeting with members of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases in Malacanang, Manila, Philippines, April 23, 2020. /AP)

(With input from Reuters, Xinhua)