First local cases of Delta variant detected in PH
ANILA---Health authorities have detected an addi tional 16 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid19) caused by the highly contagious Delta variant (B.1.617.2), including 11 local cases.
MThese are the first local cases of the Delta variant in the Philippines, Department of Health ( DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a press conference on Friday, July 16, 2021.
Of the 11 local cases, Vergeire said six are part of a large cluster of Covid-19 cases in Northern Mindanao, with onset dates of June 23 to 28. All have been tagged as recovered.
Two cases were reported in the National Capital Region (NCR). One died after being rushed to the hospital on June 28. The other case was tagged as recovered.
One case was tested in the NCR but has an indicative address in Central Luzon. This has also been tagged as recover ed.
All three cases in NCR have no known connection with each other, Vergeire said.
Two cases were detected in Western Visayas. Both have been tagged as recovered.
The five other Delta cases were returning overseas Filipinos. All underwent 14-day quarantine and have been tagged as recovered.
These 16 new cases brought the total cases of Delta in the country to 35, with two mortalities. The rest have recovered.
No local transmission
Dr. Alethea de Guzman, director of the Epidemiology Bureau, said they have yet to determine whether the local Delta cases are connected.
“As of now, what we can say is that we have local cases. As Dr. Edsel (Salvaña) said, (the cases are) sporadic. Clustering is observed but we are still investigating whether the cases are linked. We also hope to establish the source of infection,” De Guzman said.
Asked to categorically say whether there is local transmission of the Delta variant, De Guzman said, “For me, I would say not yet because we haven’t been able to link that one case has been able to infect another.”
Local transmission occurs when a local case, which means the patient has had no travel history, has infected and caused another local case. Community transmission occurs when transmission becomes widespread and the source of infection can no longer be traced.
Dr. Cynthia Saloma, University of the Philippines Philippine Genome Center (UP-PGC) executive director, said these local cases were 100 percent introduced by travelers who came in from other countries.
“Don’t believe that this Delta variant evolved locally. For it to be called Delta, it should contain the hallmark mutations of Delta,” she said.
The UP-PGC also detected 264 additional cases with the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7) and 299 more cases with Beta (B.1.351) variant in its latest genomic sequencing run involving 679 sam p l es.
These additional cases brought the total Alpha cases detected in the country to 1,481 and the Beta cases to 1,685.
There remained only two Gamma (P.1) cases and 221 Theta (P.3) cases in the Philippines.
As of July 15, a total of 8,557 coronaviruspositive samples have been sequenced. Of these, 84 percent or 7,216 have Sars-CoV-2 variants with assigned lineages.