The Department of Health confirmed that the so-called ‘FLiRT’ subvariant of COVID-19 has already entered the Philippines.
The new subvariant is a combination of the virus’ mutations that is causing an uptick in new COVID-19 cases worldwide.
The DOH, however, assured that that the country remains low-risk and the uptick in new cases remains slow, mild, and manageable.
“Their detection (along with the slow increase in the number of new cases and the plateau in the number of occupied COVID-19 beds) aligns with the international observation that the new variants under monitoring continue to be clinically mild and manageable,” the DOH said in a statement.
DOH spokesperson Albert Domingo said that it’s still early to say whether the new subvariant is the predominant variant in the country.
“What we can say is most of the sequenced cases are JN.1, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that out there, it is the predominant subvariant,” said Domingo in a statement.
The DOH official also cited limitations due to the lack of testing and genome sequencing.
“It may be likely that there are earlier KP.2 cases, but because of limited sequencing we have not detected and reported this earlier,” he said.
Based on DOH data, a total of 2,235 cases were recorded from May 21 to 27. This means a daily average of 319, much higher than the previous week’s 202.
