According to INQUIRER.NET, the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed the country’s first two cases of the India variant of the COVID-19 virus on May 11, the same day that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the variant “a global concern.”
The WHO expressed concern that the B.1.617.2 variant, which first originated in India, is more transmissible, with mutations that easily allow the virus to get past the human body’s immune system.
The B.1.617.2 variant is the fourth to be designated as being of global concern and requiring heightened tracking and analysis. The others are those first detected in Britain, South Africa and Brazil. (See related story on this page.)
INQUIRER.NET mentions, in an online briefing, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) had detected the B.1.617.2 variant in two seafarers with no known history of travel to India. Samples from their positive COVID-19 swab tests were sequenced as part of the DOH’s strengthened biosurveillance procedures, Vergeire said.
The first case is a 37-year-old male returning overseas Filipino from Oman who arrived in the Philippines on April 10 and was tested on April 15, said Dr. Alethea de Guzman, director of the DOH’s Epidemiology Bureau.
More articles: PH government makes wearing masks mandatory during the Covid-19 outbreak
The second case is a 58-year-old Filipino male who came from the United Arab Emirates. He arrived in the Philippines on April 19 and was found positive for the virus on April 24.
The two have since recovered and are back in their home provinces in the Soccsksargen and Bicol regions, respectively, De Guzman said.
Their second RT-PCR tests had yielded negative results, she noted.
INQUIRER.NET says, no close contacts were identified since both men were “immediately quarantined upon arrival,” De Guzman said, adding that those who sat near the two individuals on the plane back to the Philippines had tested negative for the virus.
The DOH was also verifying if all passengers potentially exposed to the two patients were able to complete their mandatory quarantine period of 14 days, she said.
More articles: National Tsing Hua University conducts a basketball game for migrant workers
