DAVAO CITY—Delta, or the Indian variant of Covid-19, would be treated here just like previous variants in the absence of a quick genome sequencing, the city government said.
“As of current capacity of the country to test and come up with timely result of the identity of the variant, which could take several weeks or months, we have to treat all positive cases as Covid-19 virus, because Delta variant or what, it is still the same Covid-19 virus,” said Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.
However, the public should take extra precaution with the Delta variant because it infects more people, and may eventually overwhelm our hospitals, she said.
“We have seen images of this variant in India and in Indonesia, that many have died because hospitals could not respond anymore to the mounting cases,” Mayor Sara added.
She said the Department of Health and the city task force on Covid-19 have been meeting on the recent confirmation by the Department of Health that the Davao region has already two Delta variant cases, one in Tagum City in Davao del Norte, and another one in this city.
The DOH here and the city health offices of the two cities have sent the newer batches of swab samples to determine the extent of the spread of the Delta variant. The confirmed Delta variant cases in the region were taken from the swab samples in the months of May and June yet.
Dr. Arnel Florendo, Tagum City Health officer, said the case in his city was among the samples of swabbed positive cases in May and June, and that the person has since recovered. The timeline on the infection would be reestablished to trace back the close contacts that time.
Dr. Michelle Schlosser, spokesman of Davao City Covid-19 task force, said the city’s case was a 28-year-old female who was swabbed on June 26, “after her exposure to a confirmed symptomatic case at her workplace.”
“The Davao City Health Office received the confirmatory results of the surveillance test from the UP-Philippine Genome Center on July 24. The patient has completed the required isolation period of 14 days and has since recovered. Before her exposure, the case has received two doses of the anti-Covid-19 vaccines.”
Schlosser said the Epidemiology Surveillance and Disaster Response Unit of the City Health Office would reinvestigate the case and conduct a repeat testing, including the isolation of the patient.
The regional DOH here said the two Delta variant cases were among the185 samples it sent July 1 to the University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center.
The two Delta variants were among 79 samples flagged down as “variant of concerns”: Alpha, or the UK, variant (27 samples), Beta, or South African, variant (50 samples) and Delta, or Indian, variant (2 samples).
“To date, a total of 1,893 total samples from the Davao region were already sent to the UP-Philippine Genome Center for Whole Genome Sequencing,” the DOH said.
The DOH said that the latest recommendations of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Covid-19 Variants and its various memorandums stated that “cases that have been released from isolation prior to the detection of the Delta variant of concern shall be required to undergo immediate strict home quarantine pending a negative repeat PCR test.”