THE Department of Health (DOH) yesterday said “Pirola” or BA.2.86, the newest Omicron subvariant of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has not yet been detected in the Philippines.
Citing its latest COVID-19 Biosurveillance Report, the DOH said there was no Pirola subvariant among the recent 476 samples sequenced between August 8 and September 4.
The Omicron subvariant BA.2.86 has been identified as a variant under monitoring (VUM) for carrying numerous mutations, most of which are associated with greater immune escape.
The DOH said there is no evidence of BA.2.86 being associated with more severe disease or having unusual clinical presentation.
Currently, the DOH said the subvariant has been detected in Denmark, France, Israel, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
But while Pirola remains undetected in the Philippines, the DOH said the XBB subvariant continues to dominate in the country in terms of COVID-19 samples that have been subjected to genome sequencing.
It said 429 out of the latest 476 sequenced samples were classified as XBB.
These include 29 XBB.1.5 cases, 104 XBB.1.16 cases, 56 XBB.1.9.1 cases, 1 EG.5 case, 12 other XBB.1.9.2 cases, and 186 XBB.2.3 cases
The DOH said XBB cases came from all regions except the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The report also showed there were two samples tagged as BA.2.3.20 cases that were from Western Visayas and Davao Region.
There were also seven cases classified as other Omicron sublineages, while the remaining 38 had no assigned lineages.
