The Department of Health (DOH), reiterating that there’s still yet no reported case of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, on Monday said the agency is still tracing the whereabouts of eight more travelers from South Africa who arrived in the Philippines between November 15 and 29.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the eight travelers being located are part of the 253 travelers from South Africa where the more transmissible variant with multiple mutations was traced.
To date, 80 travelers have been located, three of whom are foreign nationals and 77 were returning overseas Filipinos.
Meanwhile, 165 more travelers are currently being verified.
Vergeire also said that they are awaiting the result of 12 samples, including one from South Africa, which are expected to be released by the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) either on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday.
However, she admitted that Omicron may still enter the country and the government’s response is to buy time “to prepare our system.”
“Hindi natin sinasabi [We are not saying] it will not enter the country but when it would enter the country,” Vergeire said but appealed to the public not to panic and instead get themselves vaccinated.
Vergeire said that most of the detection in the latest whole genome sequence run conducted by the PGC as of December 6 was that of the Delta variant.
Of the 629 samples sequenced, 90.78 percent or 571 were positive from Delta variant (B.1.617.2; Indian lineage), 0.16 percent (1) of samples were positive for the Beta variant (B.1.351; South African lineage), and 0.16 percent (1) were positive from the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7; UK lineage).
“Delta variant is the most common lineage comprising 40.54 percent nationally among sequenced samples. Once detected in a region, it becomes the more common lineage,” Vergeire said.
The Beta variant comprises 18.75 percent among all samples sequenced, making it the second most common lineage, 16.36 percent or 3,168 samples positive for the Alpha variant, and 0.02 percent or three samples positive for the Gamma variant.
With the threat of Omicron variant and to prevent the spread of Covid-19 or other variants, Vergeire reminded the public to practice the minimum public health standards such as wearing of face mask and shield, physical distancing, regular washing of hands, ensuring there is enough airflow when inside enclosed spaces.
“LGUs (local government units) must also continue active case finding to immediately detect and isolate cases and investigate case clusters, thus further cutting the transmission of Covid-19 and ramp up our coverage especially among the high-risk group such as senior citizens and those with underlying conditions,” Vergeire added.