The Department of Health (DOH) on Monday reported 411 new cases of the highly contagious Delta variant.
At a media forum, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the latest run this October 8 sequenced a total of 747 samples collected in February, April, May, August, and September.
Vergeire said of the samples, 88 tested positive for the Alpha variant while 78 tested positive for the Beta variant.
“We are doing retrospective sampling to trace the beginning of the Delta variant introduction to the country as well as the earliest cases,” Vergeire said.
A total of 14,517 samples with lineages have been sequenced.
Of this, 26.2% were positive for the Delta variant, making it the most common lineage nationally, 22.8% were positive for the Beta variant, and 20.2% were positive for the Alpha variant.
Meanwhile, Vergeire said of the 945 sequenced samples from returning overseas Filipinos, 630 were positive for a variant of concern.
“A gradual increase in the proportion of the variant of concerns with respect for the total samples sequenced has been seen at the national level since the detection of the first local Alpha and Beta variant cases,” Vergere said.
She said variant of concern cases only comprised 23.2% of the samples collected in February. This jumped to 82.8% of the samples collected in March.
“This increase has been consistent for the succeeding months,” Vergeire said.
At present, variant of concern cases comprised 97.7% of the samples collected in September.
“It is important to note, however, that only samples with collection dates in September only come from the first two weeks of the month,” she said.
“In addition, similar to other variants of concern, since the detection of the first local Delta variant case collected in April, an increase in the proportion of Delta variant cases were seen in the succeeding months,” she added.
Vergeire noted that the proportions were affected by sampling methodology as samples from target areas or populations are prioritized, where infections may be associated with variants of concern.
The Philippines has logged a total of 2,666,562 confirmed COVID-19 cases. — RSJ, GMA News
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