Philippines detects 630 more Delta variant cases
MANILA, Philippines — Health authorities reported 630 more cases of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 in the Philippines on Monday from samples collected in past months.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Delta cases accounted for 94.59% of the 666 samples that were sent for whole genome sequencing.
In a briefing, she reported that these were collected from March up to this month. DOH has said it is doing retrospective testing to trace the origins of the Delta variant in the country.
The agency also reported a lone case of the Alpha, or the variant first detected in the United Kingdom.
A breakdown per region on additional Delta cases was not made available, but DOH said it remains the most common variant detected among sequenced samples.
Data from Vergeire showed, too, that the Delta now makes up 36.89% or 6,612 of the total 17,925 samples with lineages.
Alpha now has 17.46% or 3,129 confirmed cases in the country, while the Beta or that originally detected in South Africa with 19.96% or 3,577 infections.
The Philippines has remained at low-risk COVID-19 classification, as well as the National Capital Region.
This came after months of hard lockdown that was put in place amid a resurgence in coronavirus cases that went as high as over 26,000 per day.
More restrictions have since been relaxed especially with the holiday season approaching. Still, authorities remind the public not to be complacent and continue following health protocols.
To date, the Philippines has tallied 2.81 million COVID-19 cases, with deaths since reaching 45,581.
Local and global updates on COVID-19 cases, outbreaks and containment efforts due to the highly contagious Delta variant, first identified in India. (Main image: Lockdown in Sydney, Australia in June 2021 by AFP/Saeed Khan)
The Delta variant remains dominant and experts, governments and vaccine makers are urging people to take advantage of booster jabs where they are available.
Delta has proved able to evade vaccine defences against transmission better than the Alpha, Beta and Gamma COVID-19 variants.
But jabs have remained highly effective at preventing severe illness from Delta, lowering the risk of overwhelming hospital resources. — AFP
The DOH reports 520 new cases of the highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant, bringing the total in the Philippines to 5,331.
The new COVID-19 Delta subvariant has not yet been detected in the Philippines, the Department of Health says.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire says health authorities are monitoring 46 sublineages of the Delta variant, but “the particular Delta sublineage has not yet been detected among the COVID-19 positive samples sequenced in the country.”
Experts, however, are looking into the potential impact of the Delta AY.4.2. sublineage on transmissibility.
The Department of Health reports 633 additional cases of the Delta variant.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire says the additional infections account for 84.63% of the 748 samples tested on October 16.
The DOH reports 411 more cases of the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant in the country.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire says the new Delta variant cases come from 747 samples collected from February to September.
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