A 32-year-old male from Floridablanca in Pampanga is the country’s first case of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) variant formerly known as “Kappa,” which has been recently declassified as a variant under monitoring (VUM) by the World Health Organization (WHO).
In a virtual press briefing, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the latest DOH biosurveillance report showed that the B.1.617.1 patient had mild disease severity and is now tagged as recovered.
Vergeire said the DOH-Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit is gathering more information on the case.
The variant formerly called Kappa was originally classified by the WHO as a variant of interest but was declassified to a VUM on September 20.
The variant emerged from the same lineage as the Delta variant.
At the same time, the DOH also reported another case of the B.1.1.318, or the variant first detected in Mauritius.
This brings to two cases the Delta sub-variant, which was also designated by the WHO as a VUM.
The DOH said that while new variants are being detected in the country, the Delta variant continues to dominate the genome sequencing results.
Based on the latest results, there were 651 new Delta variant cases found in the Philippines.
“Delta variant (B.1.617.2/India) has 651 cases (87.03%) based on the latest run comprised of 748 samples, which were collected in March, April, May, June, September, and October,” said the DOH.
The total number of Delta variant cases in the country is now 5,982 cases.
“The Delta variant (B.1.617.2; Indian lineage) is the most common lineage (34.59%) nationally among sequenced samples,” said the DOH.
On the other hand, 15 new cases of the Beta variant (B.1.351/South Africa) were also reported to bring its total in the country to 3,577 cases.
The DOH also said that 22 new cases of the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7/UK) were also detected to bring its total to 3,128 cases nationwide.
