THE Department of Health (DOH) has identified 44 individuals as close contacts of the 52-year-old female Finnish who is the country’s first case of the BA.2.12 Omicron subvariant.
In an interview, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the contacts include nine from Quezon City, five from Benguet and 30 in the flight going to the Philippines.
Of the 44 close contacts, Vergeire said only two have so far tested negative for COVID-19.
“The rest, we are still verifying if they got tested and if we have the results already,” she said.
Vergeire said the DOH and its regional offices are closely monitoring the condition of the close contacts. “Nobody is experiencing symptoms as of this time,” she said in a television interview.
Last Wednesday, the DOH reported the detection of the BA.2.12 Omicron subvariant from a foreign traveler, who tested positive for COVID-19.
The patient has since recovered, was discharged, and has returned to her home country on April 21.
Aside from the 52-year-old Finnish female, Vergeire said the DOH is not ruling out the possibility that there are more cases of the BA.2.12 Omicron subvariant in different parts of the country.
“The possibility is there. We know the limitations of our testing. We know limitations of our sequencing. So there is that possibility of BA.2.12 being here,” said Vergeire, adding: “Similarly, it is possible that other variants are here too. That is a possibility that we are preparing for.”
In making her statement, Vergeire cited initial findings that the BA.2.12 Omicron subvariant is 2.5 times more transmissible than the original Omicron variant.
The World Health Organization, however, has yet to classify the subvariant as a variant of interest or a variant of concern.
Vergeire said that if there are undetected BA.2.12 Omicron subvariant cases and if more subvariants are already present in the country, a resurgence of COVID-19 infections is very likely.
“We made our projections, wherein if a variant of concern or these kinds of variants come in the country and there would be reduction in the compliance to minimum public health standards, we would be seeing around 60,000 cases per day just in NCR alone,” said Vergeire.
GET BOOSTED
On the heels of the detection of the BA.2.12 Omicron subvariant, the DOH renewed its call for the general public to be vaccinated or get their booster shots.
In a public advisory, the DOH said it is now more imperative for the public to get booster shots to get better protection against COVID-19 and its different variants and subvariants.
“Omicron-BA.2.12 reminds us that the virus is still out there, and cases can go up the moment we let our guard down,” said the DOH.
Based on the latest vaccination data from the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC), as of April 26, only 13,043,715 booster shots have been administered.
This means that 38,433,183 fully vaccinated individuals are still due for booster doses.
Vaccine expert panel (VEP) member Dr. Rontgene Solante, in an interview with DzMM, echoed the DOH’s statement and stressed that boosters are necessary to maintain and sustain protection against COVID-19 since the protection from the primary series wane after several months.
Boosters are to be given three months after a person is fully vaccinated. For the immunocompromised, a second booster is given after four months after they are fully vaccinated.
Solante said they are still waiting for the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) and the DOH to release the guidelines on the second booster for senior citizens and health care workers which is expected either by the end of this week or early next week to start their administering of second booster for these sectors.
