The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday confirmed the presence in the country of the Omicron Sub-lineage BA.1 and BA.2, which were detected in at least 49 countries and 17 US states.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, in an online media forum, said that BA.1 and BA.2 were detected upon “further analysis” of the University of the Philippines- Philippine Genome Center.
According to Vergeire, BA.1 was detected in only 8 regions and is predominant in Region V and among returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs).
Meanwhile, BA.2 (“Stealth” Omicron) is predominant in local cases in most regions.
“No significant difference in clinical presentation between BA.1 and BA.2, however, available data is limited,” Vergeire explained.
Athough BA.1 is the globally prevalent Omicron sublineage, Vergeire said, there is a recent increase in the detection of BA.2 sequences.
The DOH official also said that the Omicron variant is now prediminant in the National Capital Region and other regions with Omicron variant have increasing trend.
Vergeire also said that apparently, the country has already seen the worst case scenario of Omicron when it comes to the number of cases citing when around 18,000 cases was reached in the NCR.
“And now we are down to about 7,000. So nakikita natin na consistent naman na bumababa [We can see that the cases are consistently going down],” Vergeire said adding that hospital admissions has declined and positivity rate is also going down.
However, Vergeire said that severe or critical and deaths, which are worst outcome also, were not yet experienced but stressed that the DOH is still closely monitoring it.