The Philippines’ Department of Health on Friday announced that it has detected the country’s first locally transmitted cases of the more infectious Delta coronavirus variant.
Of the 16 new COVID-19 cases found to have contracted the Delta variant, 11 were tagged as locally acquired cases, said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in a media briefing.
She said one person had already died of the variant in a Manila hospital on June 28.
The variant, first detected in India, has been blamed as the key factor for the spike in cases in neighboring countries including Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Five of those who tested positive were Filipinos returning from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and the United Kingdom.
One case arrived in the Philippines from the United Kingdom on April 26 and has been tagged as recovered after undergoing the 14-day quarantine period.
Another two of the cases arrived in the Philippines from Qatar on June 15 and have recovered.
Six Delta variant carriers are from Northern Mindanao, two are from the National Capital Region, another two from Western Visayas, and one from Central Luzon.
The DOH said it is still investigating if the local cases have already led to local transmissions.
The term “local transmission” is used if there is evidence that a local case has already transmitted the virus to another local case, said Director Alethea De Guzman of the Epidemiology Bureau.
“We are investigating if there are linkages among these cases and where they got this Delta variant,” she said.
While existing COVID-19 vaccines could not fully protect individuals from the Delta variant, the jabs still provide protection to avoid developing severe cases or COVID-19, said Dr. Edsel Salvaña, an infectious disease expert.
The Philippines has earlier issued a travel ban against Indonesia, where some 54,000 people contract COVID-19 daily due to the Delta variant. – with a report from Reuters
