MANILA – The Department of Health (DOH) has detected more cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) variants from the United Kingdom (UK) and South Africa.
Health secretary Francisco Duque III said Friday they have recorded 52 additional cases of the B.1.351 variant or the South African variant. This brings to a total of 58 cases of the South African variant recorded in the country.
Duque said 41 of the newly-confirmed South African variant cases were detected in Metro Manila while 11 are still being verified if they are local cases or returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs).
One patient with the South African variant from the National Capital Region (NCR) has recovered while 51 cases remain active and are being managed, DOH said.
DOH also discovered 31 more cases of the B.1.1.7 variant or the UK variant. The country has now recorded 188 cases for the UK variant.
Out of 31 new cases, 28 have indicative addresses from NCR. Three cases, meanwhile, are still being verified if these are either local cases or ROFs.
The department also said 42 more cases “with mutations of potential clinical significance” were recorded from the ninth batch of 350 samples sequenced by the Philippine Genome Center. These were found to have the N501Y and E484K mutations.
34 of the new cases are from Central Visayas, six from NCR, and two are still being verified. All were tagged as active cases, except for the 22 patients from Visayas who recovered.
“The DOH and its concerned Centers for Health Development is coordinating with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and Local Government Units in NCR and Region 7 to institute measures to contain further transmission of these variants and mutations,” the health department said./PN
