The Department of Health (DOH) said on Friday it is now checking if three new COVID-19 variants, including the United Kingdom variant, have entered the Philippines.
“Right now we are monitoring three variants. This is the UK type variant, the South Africa variant and the variant identified in Malaysia,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said, speaking in Filipino during a virtual briefing
Earlier reports said that a new variant was found in Sabah, a territory claimed by both Malaysia and the Philippines.
This resulted in a strict lockdown for nearby Sulu province.
Vergeire said that the more than 300 samples that underwent gene sequencing for the UK variant “were just initial.”
The earlier batch of samples did not yield the UK variant or the South Africa variant that is said to affect vaccine efficacy.
“This is a continuing surveillance system that we have established already,” she said.
She said that the agency has coordinated with regional offices to source samples from Mindanao and the Visayas.
“We are appropriating funds to the Philippine genome center so that we can sustain this because this is important to our surveillance system,” she said.
Asked if the Philippines is also monitoring the variant from Nigeria, now being closely studied by scientists as COVID-19 cases in the country increased, Vergeire said it should show up if there are any.
According to a report on “State of the Nation” in GMA, the South Africa variant, dubbed as the 501Y.V2 variant, has been recorded in 10 countries.
This is different from the 1701V variant found in Malaysia and the P681H variant found in Nigeria. The Cluster 5 variant first found in minks, meanwhile, was seen in Denmark.
The D614G variant first recorded in China is the most widespread and dominant variant of COVID-19 across the globe.
Since the UK variant or the VOC 202012/01 was first detected in December, it has been found in 41 countries.
Some 191 countries and territories have recorded COVID-19 cases.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that although all viruses change, this does not mean an increase in the rate of transmission or their effects on victims.
Meanwhile, the DOH said the close contacts of a Filipina domestic helper in Hong Kong, earlier tested positive for the UK variant of coronavirus, have already been swabbed for COVID-19 test and quarantined.
“In Solano, Cagayan [Valley] where she came from, we have gone to their close contacts and have obtained swabs for RT-PCR and specimens for genome sequencing… The specimens have already been sent to the Philippine Genome Center,” Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in Filipino.
“They are currently quarantined and being monitored,” she added.
The same actions were taken for the close contacts of the case in Metro Manila.
“She has a manning agency here. We tracked all her close contacts. They were all swabbed,” Vergeire said.
Other “retroactive” contacts of the case since she arrived in Cagayan Valley, before leaving from Hong Kong again in December, are also being traced.
The exact date of her arrival in the country before flying out to Hong Kong has yet to be determined.
The results of the tests being run by the Philippine Genome Center for the close contacts of the case is expected to be out next week, according to Vergeire.
Health officials in Hong Kong first reported that a traveler from the Philippines tested positive for the new coronavirus UK variant on Tuesday.
The DOH later on said the case was a 30-year-old woman from Cagayan Valley who arrived in Metro Manila on Dec. 18 and underwent quarantine in observance of workplace protocols.
On December 19, she took an RT-PCR test for COVID-19, which yielded a negative result. The traveler departed for Hong Kong on Dec. 22 and again underwent quarantine upon arrival.
The traveler took another swab test on Jan. 2 and tested positive for the coronavirus variant initially discovered in the United Kingdom.
Despite a claim from the Palace that “the worst is over,” Vergeire said the public cannot afford to be complacent.
“I don’t think that this is the time for us to make conclusions at this point in our situation regarding this pandemic. We know that there are many more factors and challenges we need to face,” Vergeire said.
“We are not out of the woods yet. The recent trends we see are not stable… really unstable. This is because of the effect of this decrease in the output of our laboratories,” she added.
On Thursday, Roque expressed optimism that 2021 will be a year of recovery for the Philippines.
“I think we have seen the worst and I think the entire government machinery agrees with this… So don’t worry, the worst is over – they say we’ve hit rock bottom and the only way to go is up,” he said.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. also claimed that the curve has flattened.
“It’s flattened. We don’t know why. I suspect it was the long and periodic lockdowns. It wasn’t science. But it took plenty of courage from those enforcing the lockdown because they had to be in the line of infection to keep as many of us in our places,” he said in a Twitter post.
In response, Vergeire said many factors affect the number of cases. One of the major factors, she said, was the decrease in laboratory output by as much as 30 percent during the holidays.
“Let us wait for about a week to two weeks so we can see if there really is an increase in cases because of the holidays,” she added.
The DOH logged on Friday 1,776 new COVID-19 cases in the Philippines, bringing the total to 483,852 infections.
This did not include data from five laboratories that failed to submit on time.
The 1,776 new cases was the highest daily count last week.
With 285 additional recovered patients, there are now 449,330 total recoveries.
The DOH also recorded eight new COVID-related deaths or a total of 9,364 fatalities.
This brings the number of active cases to 25,158. Active cases refer to patients who are still infected with COVID-19 and are staying either in the hospital or under home quarantine. Of the active cases, 82.6 percent are mild; 8.6 percent are asymptomatic; 5.4 percent are critical; 2.9 percent are severe; and 0.48 percent are moderate.
The DOH has suspended five laboratories for failing to report COVID-19 test results on time but lifted the suspension on one of them that immediately complied.
A public health expert on Thursday said the government should give away free face shields to encourage Filipinos to wear the additional protection against COVID-19.
“Government should just give it for free,” Dr. Tony Leachon told ABS-CBN News.
Leachon explained that a face shield on top of a face mask could serve as additional protection, especially with the threat of a new and more transmissible COVID-19 variant.
Leachon said this in reaction to two surveys showing that there are fewer people wearing face shields compared to other health standards such as wearing face masks and frequent hand washing.