The Department of Health said that majority of the cases of the COVID-19 variant unique to the Philippines came from Region 7 or Central Visayas.
“Of the 98 cases that we have detected to be positive for the P.3 variant, I think 80 percent were coming from Region 7,” Dr. Alethea de Guzman of the Department of Health’s epidemiology bureau told ABS-CBN News.
The health official said that they were still verifying the location of other cases as some patients could have been tested in other areas but lived in other regions.
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The P.3 variant, is feared to be more transmissible and contains the N501Y and E484K mutations.
“The first one has been reported to lead to higher transmissibility and as such possible increase, a large increase of our cases and the second has the potential effect on our vaccine efficacy,” De Guzman said.
The DOH has yet to determine if the current surge of the virus is due to the newly discovered variants.
“Right now, that’s also part of what we’re studying. Again, one of the potential impacts of this variant is it increases transmissibility, meaning much like what we’re seeing in countries like the UK,” she said.
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The DOH advised the public to remain vigilant.
“Our attitude should be enhanced and should always be on the lookout because we don’t want to become infected. We don’t want this to become the predominant variants in the Philippines,” De Guzman said.
“If these variants of concern right now, it’s accounting for around 7 percent of all the samples we are sequencing. But what if it becomes 50 percent or what if it becomes all of the samples we’re sequencing positive for these variants of concern, it really will lead to a large spike in our cases,” she added. (TDT)
