The Department of Health said the United Kingdom and South Africa coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) variants are now in all cities in Metro Manila.
“Hindi natin ipagkakaila na nakita na natin na itong mga variants ay nasa lahat na ng cities dito sa Metro Manila. At ‘yan ay factual na,” DoH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a virtual forum on Monday, March 22.
“Nakita na natin na in all of the cities meron na tayong either UK or South African variant. In other cities, meron pa sila both UK and South African variants,” she added.
“So we can say the variants are here and it has contributed to the increase in the number of cases,” Vergeire said.
But, she said, there are also other factors that contributed to the increase of cases in the country such as the non-compliance in health protocols and some other institutional gaps Vergeire said as of now they need to confer with the World Health Organization to find out if there’s local or community transmission already.
The country has already recorded 223 UK variant cases and 152 South African variant cases.
This is aside from the 104 cases of the P.3 variants, which was first detected in the Philippines.
