Health authorities have detected 640 more cases of the more transmissible Delta, the dominant variant in the country, for a total tally of 2,708, the Department of Health reported on Monday.
In a statement, the DOH said aside from the Delta variant, also detected were cases of Alpha variant (24), Beta variant (28), and Theta variant (5), based on the latest whole-genome sequencing report by the University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center (UP-PGC), and the University of the Philippines-National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH).
Five hundred eighty-four of the 640 new Delta cases are local cases, 52 are returning overseas Filipino (ROF), and four cases are currently being verified if these are local or ROF cases.
Of the 584 local cases, the top regions indicated as addresses of the cases were the National Capital Region with 112 cases, Cagayan Valley with 52, and Region 4-A (Calabarzon) with 49.
“There were two cases whose indicated address was the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao,” the DOH said.
Based on the case line list, three cases are still active, 13 cases have died, while 624 cases have been tagged as recovered.
Case details are being validated by the regional and local health offices.
Meantime, of the new 24 Alpha variant cases detected, about 23 were local cases, and one is a ROF.
Based on the case line list, one case died while 23 cases have been tagged as recovered.
To date, the Alpha variant, first detected in the UK, cases in the country is now 2,448.
For the 28 Beta variant cases, all are local cases and have been tagged as recovered.
The total Beta variant cases are now at 2,725.
The five additional P.3 variant cases were all local cases. Based on the case list, all have been tagged as recovered.
“The UP-PGC also announced that starting September 9 they will be scaling down their COVID-19 RT-PCR testing services to shift their resources on the detection of COVID-19 variants through whole genome sequencing,” the DOH said.
The shift would lead to an expected increase in the sequencing capacity and detection of Covid-19 variant cases in the country in the succeeding months.
As cases with the Delta variant and other variants of concern comprised the largest percentage of cases included for sequencing on this latest run, the DOH reminded the public to adhere to the minimum public health standards to prevent the transmission of the Covid-19 and its variants.*PNA
