DOH-7: No South African variant detected in Central Visayas yet

Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, DOH-7 spokesperson | File Photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines – There are still no confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients infected with the South African variant in Central Visayas, the regional health office reported.

But health officials here discovered more patients infected with ‘mutations of concerns’ during the continuation of the agency’s bio-surveillance program.

“We are still confirming the presence of a South African variant, but we already recorded 70 mutations with potential clinical significance,” said Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson of the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7).

DOH-7 earlier announced that there were only 34 samples found with mutated versions of SARS-CoV-2.

“The PGC (Philippine Genome Center) gave us back the results of the latest batches of samples we sent and additional 36 of these turned out to have mutations of clinical significance,” Loreche said.

Under their bio-surveillance program, DOH-7, as of March 8, has already submitted more than 480 samples for genomic sequencing to the PGC.

Two mutations of concerns were discovered in Cebu and these are tagged as E484K and N501Y.

DOH-7’s bio-surveillance initiative began last February as an effort by health authorities to detect the presence of B117 also known as the U.K. variant.

Loreche said that as of March 7, their department has recorded five COVID-19 patients from Central Visayas confirmed to have been infected with the U.K. variant.

Two of them are from Bohol province and two others are from Cebu province. The fifth one registered Negros Oriental as his home address.

But according to Loreche, all of these patients, and those whose samples were found out to have the mutations of concern, were asymptomatic. They have also since recovered and completed quarantine, she added.

In the meantime, the DOH-7 official said that the COVID-19 outbreak in Central Visayas has remained under safe levels despite the continuous increase of new infections.

Loreche said critical care utilization rate, as of March 6, was at 54.6 percent, just a few points below the warning level of 60 percent.

“We are still in the safe zone since we are still below 60 percent. And we look forward to maintain this level of critical care utilization rates, and hopefully even slightly lower, in the coming days,” she added.

As of March 8, health authorities in Central Visayas were monitoring a total of 7,112 active cases, most of which came from Cebu island.

Most of these active cases, which refer to patients still infected with SARS-CoV-2, are asymptomatic, DOH-7 noted. / dcb