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.