MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) announced the detection of the first case of the COVID-19 Lambda variant on Sunday, August 15, 2021, along with an additional 182 cases of the Delta variant.
The DOH also reported the detection of 41 cases of the Alpha variant and 40 cases of the P.3 variant in the latest batch of samples sequenced by the University of the Philippines – Philippine Genome Center.
With the 182 additional cases of the Delta variant, the total number of cases of the more transmissible variant now sits at 809.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 Lambda variant, first identified in Peru, is currently classified as a variant of interest (VOI), according to the DOH.
This variant of COVID-19 is said to be dangerous as Japanese researchers said the highly infectious variant is more resistant to vaccines than the first variants of the virus that emerged from Wuhan, China.