BY ANTONIO COLINA IV
DAVAO CITY – Health Secretary Francisco Duque III confirmed on Friday that the Philippines has 52 additional cases of the South African variant of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and 31 additional cases of the United Kingdom (UK) strain.
In a press conference during the COVID-19 vaccination rollout at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in Davao City, Duque said that 41 out of the 52 new additional cases of the South African variant (B.1.351) cases and 14 out of the 31 new cases of the UK variant (B.1.1.7) are in the National Capital Region (NCR).
The health secretary did not discuss in what regions the remaining 11 cases of the South African variant and the remaining 17 cases of the UK variant have been reported.
Last March 2, the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed the detection of the country’s first-ever six cases of the more infectious South African variant in the country.
He said that the Technical Working Group on COVID-19 Variants, created by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), has immediately called for a meeting with local chief executives of the NCR on Friday on the heels of the increasing number of the South African variant cases.
Health experts in the country expressed concern that the COVID-19 vaccines, developed by the British drugmaker AstraZeneca and Oxford University, may not work against the South African variant.
A total of 487,200 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines arrived in the country last March 4 through the COVAX facility.
Last Sunday, the country received 600,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines developed by Sinovac of China.
